


The Entrail Bonds

by LSDAndKizuki



Category: Original Work
Genre: Anthology story, Dark Fantasy, Gen, OCs - Freeform, References to Norse Religion & Lore, multiple short stories, plus loki makes an appearance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-02
Updated: 2015-10-20
Packaged: 2018-04-24 11:48:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 11
Words: 27,422
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4918366
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LSDAndKizuki/pseuds/LSDAndKizuki
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Terrified, panicking and lost, Dinah Spurns runs through an immense forest, before stumbling into a small, enticing house. It has food. It has bedrooms and bathrooms. It even has a drawing room. </p><p>Dinah can't leave it.</p><p>Slowly, person by person, the house begins to fill. And, with only each other for entertainment, the residents of the Black Woods House start to tell stories. What they don't know is that their stories are bound together in a way no one can expect, but all must fear...</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> My first work uploaded here. It's a novel, already completed so you don't need to worry about hiatuses (that is, if you're interested enough!) I'd really recommend you give it a try - it's not too long, and I'd love to know what you think!

_Flash._

_Boom._

 

“I wasn’t lying, you know.” The air in the drawing room was stretched, pulled taut. “I really did know that man.” There was the rustling and crinkling of paper being folded in half.

The silence shattered as the front door wrenched itself open and slammed shut. They could hear wet footsteps scraping on the stone kitchen floor; they could hear a figure dragging itself out of a whirlwind. The people in the drawing room sat still and quiet, focused on maintaining their own calm through the building panic.

The figure stumbled, shaking, into the room. It looked up at the others, a man, with jagged features, and rough hairs all over his chin. His eyes were wide, and seemed to stretch their sockets. Darting, they rested at least once on every person in the drawing room. “Listen,” he gasped. “You have to listen to me. What I have to tell you is so important. You have to – listen...” His voice trembled as if on the verge of tears, but he pushed one hand through his hair, and took a deep breath, composing himself. The people in the drawing room were entranced by his eye sockets, by how awfully familiar they were.

There was too much silence. There were too many unanswered queries. One of the six opened his mouth - a square man of fairly large build. He spoke for everyone else in a thin voice:

“Are you a murderer?”

And then, “You are, aren’t you?”


	2. Chapter One

In the end, only seven people ever saw the Black Woods House. Seven people out of the millions in Britain, the billions on Earth and the quintillions upon quintillions in the universe knew for certain that the house was there.

First was Dinah Spurns. She had been a professional dancer for five years out of her twenty-seven, but her career stopped on the fifth of September 2011, when she found herself lost in the Black Woods.

“Even today,” she would say, had she the chance, “I remember how I felt. I was on some trip with my family, and my sister and I, we started chasing each other, like we used to when we were children. Anyway, she was chasing me through the woods – the Black Woods – and I was laughing so hard and running so fast that I didn’t notice that I couldn’t hear her shouting, or her footsteps. Only when I was so far in that I couldn’t see the exit did I realise, and I saw that I was lost and I started trying to make my way out again, and I saw this big, old house, and I went in, and – well, I suppose I had to start living here.”

She would speak of how panicked she was, and how like a child she acted, frantically running through horrifyingly identical trees, calling out for her family, considering just staying put and waiting for them to come, but knowing it wouldn’t be any use, this wood was just too thick...

Inside, the house was cosy, beautiful and entirely empty. It had a kitchen. It had a drawing room, complete with elegant bookcases against the walls. She didn’t bother to count the bathrooms, or the bedrooms, but there seemed to be plenty. From the windows, the garden looked beautiful too, but Dinah never entered it, because the back door was locked, and she couldn’t find a key anywhere. She turned to the front door, and considered opening it, going around the house to see the garden that way. From the windows, it seemed to be completely free of the Black Woods, almost as if the house was disconnected from the trees; a perfect haven. She was intrigued, and itched to be in that sunny, treeless garden, but then she thought of going back out into those woods.

Dinah was certain that if she left the house by the door through which she had entered, she would be swallowed by the trees, never to see the house, or the garden, again. The thought of being _lost_ again sent shivers down her spine. She decided to stay indoors, alone with the echoing clicks of a clock on the mantelpiece in the drawing room. It read 2:48. Dinah waited.

After a while, she said aloud to herself: “I think I’ll wait here until the owners of this house come back. Maybe they can direct me out of the woods.” She paused, as if for reply, but when there was none she said: “Yeah. Good plan.” Her eyes drifted to the books, and she went to take one out. _After all,_ she decided as she opened a pristine copy of _Great Expectations_ and started to read, _I could be waiting for quite some time._

The owners did not come back. Dinah Spurns lived in the Black Woods House for one year, nine months, fifteen days and four hours, by the clock on the mantelpiece. She lived on her own, slept on a double bed upstairs, worked through every book she could find in the drawing room, and ate the seemingly endless food in the kitchen. She never once opened the door to the garden, or the door to the woods.

Then, on the twentieth of June 2012, the door opened.

*****

“Jesus. Uh... Hello?”                                          

The voice came sailing in from far away. It felt strange in Dinah’s ears, almost tickling.

“Hey, lady. Lady? Are you OK?”

Even with eyes closed, Dinah could feel the light around her, oppressively bright. A shadow seemed to move in the gory red front of her. She let her eyes open themselves, and the red became stark white. There were strange tendrils drooping down, almost touching her. Not tendrils, she realised, but hair, long hair.

“Oh, you’re awake. Jesus.”

The world was clearing now, and Dinah could identify a male, American voice. What was an American doing here? She opened her mouth to speak, but no words came out. It occurred to her that she hadn’t really spoken in about a month. Her eyes were unfocussed, and Dinah sluggishly attempted to make sense of the swimming brown shapes in front of her.

“Hey, do you own this place or something? I didn’t know there was a house. The woods...” Dinah could sense movement as the man turned his head uncertainly to the door behind. “Uh... Hey, I’ll get you a glass of water. Sound good?”

Dinah nodded. The man’s face was completely clear now, a bearded, square head framed by scraggly blond-brown hair. The man was wearing a t-shirt and brown trousers, such bland and unnoticeable clothing. “Thank you,” she said, faintly. “There’s... water... in the fridge...” She screwed her face up. “It never runs out...”

The man looked concerned. Dinah’s head was not clear enough to tell why. “Right. OK...” The man looked around the room for a second. “I’m Doug. You are...?” Dinah couldn’t respond. Doug sighed. “Listen, is there anyone else here? I’m sure you don’t just live on your own.”

“No. There’s no one here.” The world slipped in and out of focus, vibrating between cloudlike and hazy, to needle-sharp. “You’re the first person for one year, nine months, fifteen days and four hours.” She nodded to the clock. “I’ve been keeping count.”

The man’s face was white, and his forehead was shining with growing sweat. “Man, what happened?”

“I got lost in the woods...” The words were normal, and they slipped out of her, as if she were being interviewed on television. “I found this house, and I have been living here ever since.” She chose, quite deliberately, to leave out the weeks she spent with her head in her knees on the kitchen floor, rocking backwards and forwards, trying to wake up from the terrible nightmare, praying that she would find herself in a hospital bed, the concerned faces of her family lit up around. Even that memory was slowly slipping away.

“But... didn’t anyone come? Why didn’t you leave?”

“I couldn’t.” How could one leave while their head was in their knees?

There was a very long pause, and Dinah was considering asking when that glass of water was coming, but eventually Doug broke in. “Jeez. I don’t want to be stuck here. I was just trying to... well, you know.” He didn’t finish, but Dinah decided it was best to let it be.

“You could leave,” she suggested. A reasonable notion, but so strange. “I wouldn’t mind, honest. I’ve done all right until now.”

Doug shifted his gaze toward the door. It seemed to dominate everything now, an ominous spot in a sea of comfort.

“No, I couldn’t,” Doug said. “You’re not OK. I wanna make sure you’re fine, before I go back into the…” he took a breath. “Woods.” Dinah smiled at him, gratefully, sensing that it was the correct response. She sat up, and beckoned Doug into the drawing room.

“Well, you are the only person I’ve seen for nearly two years. Why don’t you tell me a little about yourself?”

*****

When Shreya Fowl finally caught sight of the Black Woods House, she was relieved to find the lights on, and the sounds of people’s voices coming from inside – a sound that almost drowned out the endless _swish_ of the trees. It wasn’t as she’d imagined it; most other haunted houses were deserted, unwelcoming and generally dead-looking. She’d hoped for it: a secret, scary, haunted house in the middle of a secret, scary wood. However, as she entered the forest and found herself only in the company of tall, thin-trunked trees that stretched for miles, she felt increasingly unenthusiastic about the prospect of _more fear_.

Right now, her heart was hammering against her chest. All the paranoia, all the helpless panic driven on only by instinct had completely dissipated. In its place was anticipation and thundering excitement – _it was here!_ It must be it. What else could it be? True, in the end it had turned out to be just another building, happily inhabited – just a house deep inside a forest.

It wasn’t much. But it was honestly more than anything Shreya could have hoped for in that moment.

Grinning, Shreya ran up to the front porch and knocked on the door of the house. For a moment, there was a black silence from inside, until a man’s voice called, “I’ll get it,” and the door was opened.

Squinting at first at the sudden light, Shreya glanced up at the door-opener.

Everything about him, his eyes, his hair, his dress shone with a golden glow. He had a casual smile, and – Shreya was certain – a certain buzz of intelligence and interest about him. He was taller than Shreya by a little less than a head, and looked down at her to say, “Hello, miss. Are you lost? Most of us are.”

With that, Shreya knew she was in love. Her eyes feasted on the man.

The perfect door-opener continued; “My name’s Travis Loup. What’s your name?”

_Loup... Like the wolf... A handsome lone wolf..._

Shreya managed to squeak out something that sounded a little bit like her name.

“Freya, huh? Nice name. You can come inside – we’re talking, in the drawing room.” Shreya didn’t have time to correct Travis, and she wasn’t sure she would, either. In a daze, she followed him into the house, vaguely noticing the strangely loud slam behind her. _Must have been windier than I thought._

There were three people in the drawing room: two men and one woman. One of them – a man who seemed just past middle-age to Shreya – looked with beady eyes at her and Travis.

“What is this, Loup? A newcomer – another lost-person?”

It occurred, suddenly, to Shreya that maybe this place wasn’t happily inhabited after all. _All these people got lost. Just like I read about._

Travis gave another casual smile, and Shreya looked away. “Yes, this is Freya. I don’t know where she came from, or if she’s lost. And please, call me Travis, Michael.”

“Only if you call me by what I prefer,” the beady-eyed man responded, turning away from Travis as he did so. “My last name, Grace. Remember?”

At this, the woman looked up. She had a wild face, with thickly painted features and hair braided all over her scalp. Her crooked grin immediately made Shreya feel uncomfortable. _I’ve seen this somewhere before._ “But, like,” the woman said, “that’s a girl’s name. I had a classmate called Grace.”

“Jesus, Cassandra,” the other man muttered, and his voice immediately stood out from the others, with its burnt American twang. “No sense of subtlety.”

Grace’s eyes rested on Shreya again. “So, Freya. Why are you here?”

Shreya found it easier to correct this man. “Thank you, my name is Shreya. I am not lost.”

“Well!” Cassandra whistled, “That’s different. That makes you and Doug. Or _did_ you get lost, Doug? Can never remember.” Her voice was piping and disruptive.

Doug, the American, who seemed to Shreya to be the epitome of calm and good temper, sighed. “Not lost,” he said, “Suicidal. There’s a difference, you know.”

It was a nasty, jarring word, but before Shreya could cook up a sensitive enough response, something clicked and slotted into place in her brain. “Cassandra.” An image flashed up in her mind: a blurry selfie of a young woman in a tank-top, surrounded by sad messages and mournful posts. “Cassandra Lee!” The excitement was back. “I remember you now, you went missing… Your friends, your family, they were looking for you for so long, they thought you were dead…” She beamed, “But to think you’ve been here all this time – it _’s_ amazing!”

“You know who I am?” Cassandra sat up straight. Her expression became guarded.

It was time to come clean. “Your story was on Facebook, how you and a couple of others disappeared near a large forest,” she said. “And you weren’t the only ones. Dotted around the Internet, people were telling tales of missing family members and settlements deep inside some wood...” She took a breath, gathered her bearings. “I got intrigued. I’ve spent the last two years to pinpoint the patterns, timing and location of this anomaly. It was hard enough finding these Black Woods on a map, but I’m here now.” She gave the most warm and friendly smile she could muster. “I came to hear your stories.”

Shreya waited for the people to respond. Cassandra looked down, and fiddled with one of her braids, and the silence became increasingly uncomfortable, until Travis spoke, tentatively. “So, are we… some kind of legend in the outside world? Some urban myth?” He gazed at her in deep interest.

Shreya felt an awful, dopey smile stretch her mouth. _He has the most gorgeous blue eyes._ “Sort of. Look...” She lifted her tight backpack off her shoulders, and opened it. Her eyes were on her documents, phone and notepad as Doug squeaked in shock.

“Oh my god. Outside-stuff.” And,

“It’s a phone,” from Cassandra.

Shreya was beginning to feel the twitching nerves of concern. This house was feeling every moment less and less like what it had seemed outside. She swallowed. She’d wanted to talk about the fascinations she had with their life, how she’d gathered all this information by herself, as it wasn’t popular enough to be a trend, and ask as many questions as possible, get the poor lost souls out of here... But somehow, those things didn’t seem quite so important anymore. She craned her neck into the kitchen, to see the door, perfectly in the centre of her vision. She turned back to the wide-eyed group of different people, people so _normal,_ yet horribly unnatural. Finally, after a tense pause, she zipped up her backpack.

“How...” The nerves were getting to her. She could feel her heart trying to burst out of its ribcage. “How long have you guys been here for?”

There was another pause, a pause too long and too sad for Shreya’s liking. Then, finally, it was broken by an unfamiliar voice, of someone who had entered without her notice: “A while.”

_It’s her. The dancer._ Shreya pulled her backpack towards her chest, and sank into an armchair next to her. There were pangs of reason in the back of her mind, telling her to leave the house, call 999, get out of here as soon as possible.

Shreya ignored them. Before her, Dinah Spurns stood at the bottom of the stairs, and stared out into no one’s eyes.


	3. Chapter Two

**Dinah’s story**

**“Djinn”**

Beneath him, Francis could feel tubes pumping and pulsing inside the mattress, pushing fluids all around the bed, swelling and shrinking like an enormous heart.

Francis badly wanted to sit up, but there were restraints on his head.

“Some people can get _very_ restless,” the nurse, a tall white-skinned man with blue tattoos, assured him, facing the trolley at the side of the room. “It’s just a precaution, as much as anything.” He was wearing an apron, and had tied a double knot around his waist. Francis’ eye twitched impatiently. “The-ere we go!”

The nurse turned around, a small red vial pressed between long, bony thumb and forefinger. He grinned. “Time to go under.” Francis eyed it, and gave a slightly shaky smile.

“So. Uh... Dreams, huh?” The nurse nodded. “Wow. What’s it like? I mean - from a professional point of view.”

The nurse’s eyes went very wide, and he began to tell Francis the same thing everyone else had told him, about _dreams._ “Oh,” he purred, “It’s _amazing._ Just - incredible. It’s like a whole other world has opened up just for you. It’s like discovering a new side to reality. It’s terrifying, overwhelming for some - but so worth it.” Quite suddenly, the nurse’s eyes narrowed. “But the thing about dreams, the thing no one tells you... You don’t know you’re having one.”

“Really?”

“Really. Only when you wake up, only when you pierce the surface, do you realize.” A cold glaze swept over the nurse’s eyes. “And then, in a few minutes, you forget the whole thing.”

“That sounds sad.”

“Yes! But beautiful, right?” There was a thin tubular socket attached to one of the wires leading into Francis’ arm. The nurse slotted the vial into it. “That’s the dream, right there. It’ll pump through you, along with the anaesthetic.” He placed his palm over Francis’ forehead, and immediately he felt his skin cool and relax. “Sweet dreams, Francis.”

Francis thought about the liquid dream, now coursing through him. The only ingredient he’d noticed, among all those dumb science-y names was opium. It had scared him, when he thought of smoky dens, sea-faring wars and law-breaking, but the man on the street had assured him that the effects were not dangerous.

“Opium’s addictive and deadly. That’s why you’re afraid, right?” he had said, and Francis had nodded, shamefully. “They only give you a little, and the idea is that you only get the dream treatment once or twice a year. You’ve got nothing to worry about.” The man had leaned closer to Francis, who in turn leaned back. “You know, you’re _very_ lucky to be the first to try this. There are people out there who’d die for this treatment.” Then he directed Francis to a warehouse, at the end of the road after two turns. “It’s right by a giant alley. Can’t miss it. Sweet dreams!”

It was admittedly quite small for a warehouse, and conveniently inconspicuous in the evening gloom. There were a few posters left clinging to the windows, adverts for some restaurant - “THE GENIE’S PALACE” they announced, “FINEST ARABIAN FOOD AROUND”. As Francis entered the place, he couldn’t help feeling that it was a little dirty. _The people know what they’re doing,_ he assured himself. _It’s safe._

With these words echoing in his ears, on the pulsing mattress, Francis fell.

*****

Francis fell back, his body arching. He heard the ground vanish beneath him, watched the stars open above him. He fell steadily, not too slowly, and as he felt the fabric of reality give way all around, his panic and fear diffused out of him. He made his voyage backwards, face bathed in starlight, limbs numb in rushing wind.

When he landed, Francis did not feel it. The world was no longer starry and endless, but a forest of bamboo stalks, reaching upwards in a gradation of cool greens. Like needles, they stood side by side in hundreds, taller and more beautiful than anything Francis thought himself capable of imagining.

Francis heaved himself up and began to walk. The ground was hard-packed dirt with a layer of dust on top, and stubby trails of grass forming a path. There were no bushes, no flowers, just the dust, the grass and the trees. For a while the only sounds were faint birdcalls too high up to be registered properly, and the scuffing of shoes against the earth.

After a few moments walking on his own, Francis began to notice other sounds. He heard the leap of insects from blade to blade of grass, as the trails became taller and messier. He heard the faint _plop_ of water - coming from, he realised, within the bamboo stalks, as water was pushed up their hollow insides. And, when he stood still and held his breath, he heard the groaning and creaking of the giant trees, as they grew taller still.

Francis was aware, somehow, that in no other place on Earth would he be able to hear these sounds, and he felt elated.

“Always wanted to have a dream.”

Nancy, Francis’ little sister, stood next to him. She was far shorter than Francis, and when he looked over at her, all he saw was her round, brown-haired head. He said nothing. Her sudden presence unnerved him a little. He’d been alone before, hadn’t he?

“I heard they’re developing a way to make people dream. I _so_ want to do it. I’d do _anything_ to dream. But it’s too dear.”

Now, Francis spoke. “I found an underground organization. A man on the street told me about it. _I’m_ getting the treatment very cheap.”

Nancy turned her sickly white neck up to face him. “That sounds a little dangerous. From a stranger, even!”

She began to walk along the path, ahead of Francis. Her voice was so much louder than all the things in the forest, and Francis wanted her to talk just a little quieter, show a little more respect. “They could put all sorts in the treatment,” she continued. “I heard they use _opium._ ”

“It’s only a little dose. Nothing harmful.” Francis’ voice, next to his sister’s, was infuriatingly quiet. She overrode him and raised her tone.

“What’s it matter? I’d _never_ take drugs. Not _ever._ ”

“Could you shut up, please? I’m trying to hear the bamboo growing,” Francis wanted to say. He wanted his sister to stop ruining this for him; he wanted the peaceful library-quiet back. How often did one ever get to hear the sound of water inside bamboo? “Could you - I’m - listen -”, was all he managed to force from his lips. His throat was congested with words, and they crammed up inside him, blocking the openings and choking him in their attempt to escape. “Nancy - Nance - Nance -.”

He couldn’t breathe. Nancy swam in front of him, a splatter of white and brown and muddy green, and she rolled her eyes. The clatter in his throat was making Francis nauseous. He fell to his knees and faced the dirt. “Help – _help –.”_

But when Francis looked up again, he was alone. He tried to take in breaths slowly, and tried to find the sound of the forest again. As his ears searched desperately, voices disrupted the air.

“... Got a good one.”

“Thought he’d be restless. Good idea, the head restraints.”

“Worked so well for the last one. S’why I did it.”

“Careful - careful with the drip there -.”

A sliver of reason broke through the cotton wool in Francis’ mind. “The nurse. That’s the nurse.”

The pale greens and greys dissolved into darkness.

“... Waking up. Quick...”

Francis’ brain began to piece itself together, and his memories assaulted him. He couldn’t hear insects jumping. He’d never been to a bamboo forest. He’d been dreaming - actually dreaming. His senses had returned, and there was a sharp pain in his arm, but the jam in his throat was gone. The nausea remained, however; Francis’ head was heavy and throbbing, and he was remarkably cold.

The pale shape of the nurse’s face cut into the blackness (of the _warehouse,_ Francis remembered now, the warehouse with horrible, wet floors), dark swirling ink curling around one eye, and a shocking red smear around his lips. Francis tried to open his mouth to ask if nausea was normal after a dream, but he felt cold flesh on his forehead. His lips lay agape, parched, and his throat was too exhausted, too disorientated to let any sound through. “Uh - uh -.”

“Shh... Shh… That’s it... Back down...” The nurse’s voice drove right through the confusion and soothed his nerves.

“Gin,” the last logical voice inside his head fought back sleepily. “Gin-monster.” And before Francis could start to remember what that meant, the world vanished.

*****

“I’d never take medicine from a stranger. They could be a monster.”

“Shut up, Nancy. You’re stupid.” Francis smiled, as he drifted around the pool on his back, gazing up at trees all around him, watching leaves flutter to join him at the base of a shimmering waterfall. Behind him, streams bounced light off the rocks, before him spread the grassy trail. He sighed contentedly at the quiet, steadfast sounds of the elements and plants. His eyes slid to a mound of moss and shoots beside the bank of the pool, where a spray of water ran down the length of one of the leaves, dropping off the tip. His hair soaked, his limbs suspended, Francis watched the droplets, mesmerized by the natural repeating pattern. Drip. Drip.

_I must be dreaming._

The nurse’s face burned in Francis’ mind, a flash of white and oozing red, eyes blazing.

_Oh, I’m not supposed to know I’m dreaming._

Drip. The sound of water pushing itself up through the bamboo pipes that never existed.

_I’m not supposed to know..._

Drip. The sound blood makes when it falls from a half-filled IV bag, onto a dirty warehouse floor.

Drip. Francis lay outside the doors of reality. No one could enter Francis’ world.

Drip. The sound a shower makes just after it’s turned off, but the water still comes. The sound of a man’s consciousness slipping from his ears, out of existence forever.

Francis floated with closed eyes, and fell backwards.

 

The Black Woods House

“It seemed extremely vivid for a dream,” Dinah admitted, after the story was over. When she didn’t say anything else in addition, Travis broke in.

“I think it’s very impressive, to be able to come up with something like that, especially when unconscious. You must have a fine imagination.”

“Thank you.” But Dinah’s eyes were distant, and unresponsive.

“I don’t understand,” Cassandra said. “What’s all that about Gin?”

Dinah took a deep breath, as the colour returned to her cheeks. “Djinn. An Arabic creature, more commonly known as the genie in Western culture. They can be benevolent, and grant wishes, or they can be more… predatory.”

Shreya looked up from her phone. “They’re real?”

“They are in dreams.”

There was something about Dinah that intrigued Doug very much. He sensed her sincerity, and there was a glimmer of insanity radiating from her, that mesmerised Doug. Shreya, Travis, Cassandra, Michael... All of them were boring and irritating. Dinah was special.

The people were talking. Shreya was taking notes on her phone. Doug felt a strange sensation, the feeling of something travelling up his body, through the insides, up through the thorax, into the throat, and as it reached his mouth, he felt it cram up against his teeth, demanding release, alive. It was words. Words, jamming the airways, just like Francis. Doug clamped his mouth shut. He did not want to speak, not yet...

“I will get you all out of here soon enough,” Shreya assured the group.

_She’s already said that. Why hasn’t she done it yet? What’s keeping her?_

The words were attacking now, they ignored his thoughts, and they ignored all distractions, but threw themselves bodily against the door of his mouth.

Doug raised a hand to his mouth, tentatively. He needed a stronger distraction, something familiar to think about and drive the words back down.

 _Of course._ Doug thought, once more, about the big, old gas oven in the kitchen, the razor blades beside the cosy bathtub and, perhaps scariest of all, he thought of the big, bad woods outside. Scary thoughts were good. They reminded him of reality.

 _Mistake._ The words inside the mouth pushed one final time. _Too late._ Doug let his hand fall, and allowed his mouth to fall open. They slithered and slid out, and there was nothing that he could do to stop them.

“I have something to say to you all. I should have said it a very, very long time ago...”


	4. Chapter Three

The Inside Joke, by Shreya

“We all set?”

“Uh, no, sir. The elephant guy, sir…”

“Whataboutim?”

“Says he feels sick. About to throw up, sir.”

“Swine flu?”

“Nerves, sir.”

“You telling me that after months of preparation, _now_ our main event says he’s too chicken to walk down the street in an elephant costume?”

“There’re a lot of people out there, sir.”

“An _elephant_ costume, Stuart. We’re not asking him to do the damned Tarantella in stilettos, now are we?”

“Mechanical costume manoeuvre is a skilled job, sir.”

“No, it fucking isn’t. What, he’s afraid he’ll topple on a Japanese tourist? We’re parading in FIVE.”

“Not if he keeps this up. See, he won’t get into the costume.”

“Oh, for the love of – we’ll have to get someone else to do it.”

“You ever puppet-ed, sir?”

“No cheek, Stuart. Start the parade.”

“But _sir –”_

“I’ll figure it out, damn it! I’ll catch you up. Just be sure to walk extra slow.”

“Will do, sir.”

*****

Two PM, no lunch and Ishaan is hopelessly lost. Frisco streets go looping up and down terrifying slopes, and every corner looks like a scene out of _Inception,_ a movie that’s stuck in his mind since the flight.Ishaan has been following the sidewalks like a maze runner, keeping one hand fixed to the wall, because he is sure that with the steepness of those hills, and the speed of those cars, he’ll be squashed flat if he ventures into the street. Right now he’s searching for his hotel where he left the rest of his money. 45 of the carefully chosen $50 he took out with him have been snatched up greedily by fruit machines and some pleading homeless kids he met a few blocks back (years of watching the street side poverty in India, it seems, have done nothing to strengthen his resolve).

“If they _were_ a few blocks back,” Ishaan says out loud, because he has no idea where he is.

He’s hungry, either way, and only has five bucks left. Everything in this part of town costs $20 or more. He still checks every restaurant he passes, if only to look longingly at the pizza, or artisan burgers, or ostrich steaks, and then feel personally wronged by all the Gods when he sees how overpriced everything is.

“I just have to find an ice-cream place, or a convenience store with candy bars,” he says, and then regrets it. His head fills with Hershey’s crunches and strawberry sorbet. He groans, before saying it all over again, this time in Hindi, to clear his head. There’s no one to hear him and shout some racist comment anyway – the streets are eerily silent, almost as if they have been cleared specifically. Ishaan does not care. Ishaan just wants a cheeseburger. He passes an Indian place, but doesn’t even check the price this time, because he knows that the curries in San Francisco are an embarrassment to anyone who eats them home-cooked on a regular basis. They also for some reason never have Naan, which Ishaan considers a serious offence.

*****

“Did you find someone, sir?”

“No, damn it! Start it up, I’m heading to the West side.”

“Why are you doing that, sir?”

“Because I’m going there to find someone – anyone – who can save this goddamned stupid monster parade.”

“Forgive me, sir.”

“For what, Stuart?”

“You’re taking this parade too seriously, I think. Can’t we just, you know, leave the elephant out –?”

“ _You listen here, bud._ ”

“Sir. Let go, sir.”

“There are tiny Indian children out there, Stuart, who have been waiting, _longing_ to see their culture represented properly in the States, and I’m damned, _damned_ you hear, if I’m gonna let one little mishap take the smiles from their faces, when African Princesses, Rio Carnival queens, and Scooby-goddamned-Doo start walking down these hills, but their precious Ganesh is left to rot in the store room. Have I made myself clear?”

“There won’t be anyone in the West side, sir. We specifically booked the East side for the Parade. Everyone’ll be gathering there right now, to watch it.”

“There’ll be someone, Stuart. If God… If the Gods have love in their hearts, and I’m pretty sure they do, there’ll be someone.”

*****

Roughly two thousand people are crowded in the East side of the North side of San Francisco, split in half neatly by the road. The West lies empty of spectators, except for Ishaan, who has no idea that in a matter of moments, a giant figure of Bugs Bunny will waddle, domineering, down the street, followed by a more terrifying than friendly host of puppets. He stares at the looming road in front of him, and tries to remember if he’s seen this one before.

“Oh. My. God.” Ishaan turns around, startled by the sudden voice, to see a bald, pinstripe-dressed man on the other side of the road. He looks so incredibly American that Ishaan chokes back a snigger. “You!” The man barks. “Are you here for the parade?”

It’s a phenomenally rude introduction, but Ishaan chooses to remain neutral. “What parade?” he shouts back. Does he cross the road, or is the pinstripe man going to?

The man beams at him, and marches up to him. “Ex-ce-llent!”

Ishaan starts to back away, but the pinstripes are on top of him in a matter of seconds. “Listen, son,” the man says – and good _God,_ but Ishaan hates it when Americans call him “son” – “If I told you that you – and _only_ you – could be a saviour for a day, with a simple favour, what would you say?”

Ishaan has no words. He’s dizzy from hunger and all this street searching. He swallows and manages to get out, “I’m sorry, could you repeat that?”

The man in pinstripes repeats it, and then quickly adds, “It’s for the little Indian kids out there. You see…” And after he’s done, Ishaan has to close his eyes for a moment. He thinks of San Francisco and him. He thinks about how ghost-like he is in the crowds, how invisible, yet how embarrassingly colourful and noticeable he is out in the open, where the people have more time to give him looks. He thinks about the amount of times he’s had to tell people that no, he doesn’t know anyone in Slumdog Millionaire, that he isn’t looking for work in the corner store, and that he actually doesn’t think women are beneath him. He thinks about the time he had pizza and the peach-coloured waitress had told him there’s extra-hot sauce for curry-lovers like him.

She was trying to be nice, trying to do the considerate thing. Perhaps that’s the worst part, perhaps that’s why all those words fester in his mind like rotting fruit.

Ishaan thinks of all this, then his mind turns to another image, one of bratty children squealing “Elephant! Elephant!” and suddenly his mouth says,

“I’ll do it for a cheeseburger.”

*****

Ganesh waits, a lumbering figure, limp without its puppeteer. He watches sagely as the others waddle out into the street, and waits for his moment. He waits, a God stuck inside mouldering plaster and fabrics, waits for his saviour, waits for Ishaan.

*****

“So, which lever controls which arm?”

“They’re arranged left-to-right, so top left is top left arm, bottom left is bottom left arm, top right is –”

“Got it.”

“Sure? It’s tricky stuff.”

“Yeah. I’m sure.”

“Remember, take it slow. Like riding a bike up a hill. Steady as she goes, got it?”

“Check.”

“’Else the puppet ends up falling over, and we’re banned in the whole of the West Coast because of some suffocated tourists.”

Ishaan’s feet sweat on the pedals. He flexes his fingers, and pushes his hands on the bottom left and right levers. The assistant – Stuart? – looks away, says “Don’t fuck it up, OK?” and then closes the hatch, leaving Ishaan trapped in darkness.

Ishaan presses the ON switch, and Ganesh is filled with a warm pink glow.

As he begins to parade, it occurs to him that after being an alien for two months, he’s finally retreated so far into his culture that he’s literally sitting inside and controlling the movements of one of the most powerful deities to never exist in the first place.

He cackles inside the elephant, and the sound is rough, foreign and bitter to the ears of any wide-eyed American. The music should drown it out, he thinks. And then he thinks, all I ever wanted was some food.

Scooby walks down and the people laugh. Slender Japanese dancers sashay in perfect synchronisation, right up a hill, and the people Aaaah respectfully. Little talented children cartwheel in sparkling leotards on the harsh concrete, and the people coo. Then the youngest child of a sari-clad, brow-beaten mother shrieks and squeals “Look, it’s Ganesha! Ganesha, momma!”

A few feet behind, a little clumsily perhaps, a large, gimmicky parody is marching a joyful bound on the street. The elephant god plucks a flower from its crown with a plastic upper arm, then robotically hands it to the child. The little girl screams, ecstatic.

It’s really quite disrespectful, with how comedic they’ve done it, thinks the child’s mother. It’s obvious they only put Ganesh in the parade to feed the demographic minority requirements. But she can’t help smiling with everyone else. They thought of her.

*****

An inside joke does not need to be funny, Ishaan considers. It was a good cheeseburger, and it feels nice to sit in a car rather than drag himself up and down all these identical streets.

An inside joke gets a free pass, no matter how flat or uninspired, because when you’re _in_ on an inside joke, the proud sensation of fitting in, the satisfaction of getting a reference is enough to make you laugh out of appreciation, or acknowledgment.

The pinstripe man keeps his eyes on the road but he calls back, “Hey, I don’t think I actually got your name, sir. How’s that for a hoot, huh?”

“Ishaan. My name’s Ishaan.”

“Ish-ahn! I’m David. That’s a biblical name. You know the Bible?”

Ishaan gives a pained smile. “Yes, I know the Bible.”

“Course you do. You know, you were great today, really great. I owe you one. You should take up puppeteer-ing as a hobby.”

“I’ll consider it.” The pinstripe man – David – has grown on Ishaan, quite without his permission. Grown on him like a damned fungus.

“You’re clearly unfamiliar with Frisco. What’s the deal, travelling?”

“Something like that.” Ishaan is sure most people would say he was on holiday, but he doesn’t feel like a tourist. Tourists are either interested in their surroundings, or they pretend to be. Ishaan fancies that he is vaguely hoping for a degree of interest, a shred of enlightenment to take home with him, but so far he’s coming up depressingly short. “But I can’t seem to get anywhere.”

David honks a laugh out, and then the car wheels squeak as he brakes. “This the place?” Miraculously, after just five minutes, they’re at the hotel.

“Thanks,” Ishaan says, and then, more because he has to than anything, he adds, “It was fun, you know. Being Ganesh.”

He gets out, and leans over from outside to see David in the front seat, looking away from him, at the road ahead. “Appreciation of the crowds,” he murmurs. “Nothing like it. Doesn’t exactly keep the rain off your back, but once in a while...” He looks up at Ishaan. “Word of advice: when you’re walking around here, make sure you’ve got some nice thick and comfortable shoes on. You never know where you’re gonna end up. And if you get lost... Just head towards the coast. Get your bearings.”

And then, in a flash of blue and white, he plummets down the hill in his car out of sight.

Ishaan comes to a realisation. Maybe inside jokes don’t have to be funny to be laughed at, but what’s the point of laughing once, fitting in once, for every thousand times he’s left alone on the sidewalk? He says, “Today was garbage.” Then he says it in Hindi. Then he tries to say it in German too, but can’t remember the word for garbage, so settles for “Today was shit.”

Ten PM, head spinning from the hot, sticky smells of his room, Ishaan falls asleep in a plate of jerk chicken. When he wakes up surrounded by the stink of rot and sunlight glare, he makes two decisions:

  1. He does not, nor ever really did believe in Gods, or the concept of Brahman.

  2. There’s probably someplace worse than San Francisco out there in the whole wide world, but he’s damned if he can remember where it is, and twice damned if he wants to find out.




Ishaan picks up his wallet with fifty dollars and locks his hotel room behind him. Outside the Frisco Dream Hotel, he peers into the too-bright distance, just glimpsing the swooping outline of the Golden Gate, and the glimmer of ocean. The sight reminds him: surely there must be another plastic Ganesh waiting for him, another meaningless piece of destiny just over the bridge. _Get your bearings. Get out of here._ He looks behind him at the endless climb of a particularly steep hill, and in front again. Then, planting his left hand on the wall, and his right hand in his coat pocket, Ishaan begins to walk.

 

The Black Woods House

The response was very appreciative. They liked the flow. It was somewhat thought-provoking. And it was funny, funny enough to lift the spirits in the drawing room again. Shreya blushed, proud.

“Great story, Shreya.” Travis smiled at her encouragingly, and Shreya’s heart-rate rose considerably. She looked away, fingers curling on the knitted cushion covers. The clock’s ticking went on upon the mantelpiece behind her, and it was getting dark outside.

“It just so happens,” she added, inching into the conversation, “That this is inspired by a true story. My friend of the family had a similar experience. In Chicago, not San Francisco.” Dinah, sitting next to her, smiled and Shreya felt a pang of unease as she looked in the other woman’s eyes. The pupils didn’t seem to look at anything. The unease changed to guilt, and then pity as Shreya reasoned with herself: _she’s obviously got something wrong with her, you idiot. Stop staring._

“That’s interesting,” Dinah said.

There was a short pause. And then Cassandra, with her voice like a pair of scissors, sliced through: “Well, it didn’t do much for me. No offence, Shreya.” Shreya’s face burned. She _obviously_ meant offence.

“Maybe,” said Michael Grace, “That has something to do with the fact that you were in the bathroom upstairs for the first part, getting over Doug’s story. You missed out on the narrative flow.”

That was it. Suddenly, everyone was reminded, and as the atmosphere sunk, Shreya felt a little let down. She’d told the story about Ishaan to take everyone’s mind off Doug’s story, to give them something funny and different to focus on. Maybe that had been insensitive of her – perhaps they were supposed to think about his story. It was true as well, after all.

Travis broke the heavy silence. “Well – it’s getting late, and it’s been lovely hearing some stories, and meeting Shreya.” A few smiles were shared. “But I for one am heading to bed.”

“Me too,” Shreya added immediately. How had she not noticed how dark it was outside? She glanced down at her backpack beside her, and all of a sudden the day’s events hit her in the face. She remembered: she was supposed to be getting all these people out of the house. She was supposed to be their saviour. The memory sent a twinge of guilt inside her, but she shrugged it off. One more day couldn’t hurt, inside the house. She just needed to get some reception, and update her blog, and tell everyone what she had discovered. Then people could come from the outside, and see the house themselves... “Yeah, me too,” she said again, and stood up. “I hope you guys have a spare bed for me!”

At night the garden outside the house was barely visible, but the more Shreya looked, the more the bushes defined themselves, and the more the flowers seemed to glow. _It’s very strange,_ Shreya thought, _that the garden is so separated from the woods. It’s as if they aren’t even there._ She smiled. She was wrong to have felt uncomfortable in the Black Woods House. It was good to be here, with such good company. The inhabitants all heaved themselves out of the drawing room, and retreated to their rooms, to prepare for the night.


	5. Chapter Four

Doug

I have something I should say to you all. I should have said it a very, very long time ago.

I had a girlfriend, quite a while ago. Her name was Talia. I always thought that was such a pretty name, such a delicate name. It suited her – she was small and fairylike, a little fragile. I used to call her my little fairy, as a pet name.

I loved – still love – Talia more than anything in the world. I loved her more than my parents. I loved her more than any of my friends. We were made for each other, and I felt that nothing would come between us in a million years. I wouldn’t let anything come between us.

It was about three years after we started our relationship. We’d lived in Florida together up until the last month, and I was still adjusting to the new environment of London. I didn’t work in an office yet. Instead I was at home, at my desk, sorting papers. Then she – Talia – burst through the front door, gasping for breath. “I’m pregnant,” she said. Then she burst into tears, and fell into my arms. Still today, I am never sure whether she was crying with joy or despair.

We sorted things out. Immediately we checked how far she was with a doctor, and had a long talk. She was still crying, and I was staying as calm as possible, although my mind was mixed up with a great churn of emotions: fury, excitement, dread and panic.

“You’re three months in. Why in God’s name didn’t you tell me?”

“I-I wasn’t s-sure. Didn’t know. And I know you don’t want to have a b-baby and it was really _h-hard,_ Dougie...”

“Calm down, fairy. It’s going to be all right. Shush, shush, darling... A baby, Talia!”

Of course, it wasn’t going to be all right. It was absolutely true about me not wanting a child – I was not a natural parent, and I couldn’t bear to love anything that wasn’t her – and Talia was even more fragile than before. This was how she dealt with pregnancy – how was she going to stand the sleepless nights to a baby’s wailing, and the depression so many had, being tied to a child at all times, being kept from the outside world?

I loved Talia more than anything, and was prepared to protect her from everything that should harm her.

“Talia. We need a word.”

“Of course – I think I’m starting to bulge, Doug! Can you feel it? There’s our little bundle of joy, right there –.”

“We can’t go on like this.”

Talia’s large eyes looked up from the hands upon her stomach and into mine, filled with confusion. She said nothing, so I continued.

“I know this is hard for you. Please understand, I only have your best interests in mind, and what I am about to suggest...”

_“Don’t say it.”_

I was taken aback. “You don’t even know what I’m going to say.”

“I’m not getting an abortion, Doug,” she responded, flatly. “It’s murder. It’s wrong. Also, at the end of the day, it’s my decision.”

I bit my lip. I was uncertain whether to back down at this point. “Talia, think. You – we – can’t look after a baby. Neither of us will cope.”

“We will!” she cried, but I could see the tears forming in her eyes again. “We’ll manage.”

I looked at her silently and blandly for a moment. Then, eventually: “All right.”

Talia never had the abortion. I didn’t mention it again, but I thought about it all the time; as the baby grew inside my Talia so did it bulge in my mind, preying on my dreams and every thought. I began to see the baby as more of a burden, a thing to be rid of, than anything else. It was still inside the womb, and it had no feelings or memories... Right?

Time was running short. Talia was six months pregnant, and weakening; feeling sick nearly always, in pain most of the time when she was sick. It had something to do with the baby – that I knew – but she stayed in hospital, until the doctors could figure out what was wrong. She spent about a week in the hospital, and due to special circumstances I was allowed to stay too. I saw my chance, then.

I waited, staring at Talia, anticipating the moment when she would fall asleep. Having slept by her side for several years, and being a late sleeper myself, I knew all the signs to show that she was unconscious. She had a very delicate, quiet snore – in all honesty, it was more of a sigh than anything – and her eyelashes stopped fluttering, the way they did as she was still awake. When I was sure she was fast asleep, I stood up, out of my seat. I crept to the door of the ward she slept in, and opened it, impossibly slowly and silently. I placed a foot outside the room, and shut the door behind me.

I moved slowly, slower than I ever had before in my life. I had all night, after all – and I couldn’t make a sound. If anyone saw me now, this would all be ruined.

There was no one in the hospital corridor, but I could hear the distant sounds of talking and rustling in other rooms. _Of course_ , I cursed myself, _people would still be working, or awake at this hour. It was a hospital_. I turned my eyes toward the room I had in mind. I prayed that no one was in there, and that no one decided to enter it, or the corridor, while I carried out this task.

Slower than ever, I inched with my back against the wall, down the corridor, eyes fixed on the dim blue light in the fifth room down. My target. I swallowed, giving a last glance to the ward in which she slept. _Sleep well, Talia,_ I thought. _Don’t wake up._

I spent a week in that hospital. I was allowed to move around, and be a little inquisitive. All I had to say was “Hospitals back in the US sure aren’t as efficient as this,” and the staff all blushed and allowed me to explore.

They had two sorts of X-Rays in this hospital; the MRI scanner, and a smaller, portable X-Ray. “We use this in emergencies, when the subject is in obvious pain but we can’t detect the problem,” the nurse was telling me. “Of course there are other, safer rays we have for special circumstances, pregnant women, or people with certain viruses... Though, really, it’s just a precaution. We’ve never had an incident, but then, we’ve never tempted fate too far either.”

Now, the oiled wheels of the portable X-ray were silently rolling as, still slowly as always, I pulled it back towards her ward. The rustling and talking was growing quieter. _Even hospitals have to sleep._

She was still asleep inside, her thin chest rising and falling gently, a faint parting between her pale lips. The duvet covering her was thin, and I could easily see the curve of her form through it.

 _Creak._ The sound of the X-Ray being angled on its hinges made me draw in a breath, and I glanced worriedly at Talia. She didn’t respond. She was still soundly asleep.

Only qualified doctors were supposed to use the X-Ray, to ensure minimal damage to the subject. I was by no means a qualified doctor, but I would do my best. Adrenalin hissed like fire, scorching my veins, as I gently – silently – tilted the ray until it hung directly above my Talia’s abdomen. I ran my fingers along the power lead, until I found the plug. I’d taken care to check that there was a socket near the bed in the ward. I plugged in the X-Ray.

Then, I pressed the button on the machine marked _ON._

There was no sound – well, of course – and hardly any sign that it was on, save for a dull light inside the screen and some settings that glowed green in the darkness. If I stopped moving and listened carefully, I could hear a faint hum beside Talia’s sighing sounds.

I let the X-Ray work over Talia for roughly five minutes, before I noticed her screw up her face ever so slightly in her sleep, and let out a small noise. She wasn’t awake, but it was enough to tell me to stop the machine at once. If it was causing her discomfort in any way, it _must_ have done its job.

Just as silently as before, I unplugged the X-Ray and wheeled it back, back along the corridor and into the fifth room down.

Only one thing left to do now. I made my way down the corridor in the other direction, towards the reception. There would have to be someone at the front desk.

There was. I had never seen a more tired-looking woman. “Excuse me?”

She looked up at me with shadowed eyes. “Yes, sir?”

“I need to leave early – my girlfriend’s in ward 55, and something’s come up at very short notice – I don’t have time to tell her, but I have to go really fast. It’s my mother, you see.” I swallowed, feeling slightly sick at having to use her as an excuse. “Could you...?”

“Of course, sir. I’ll inform the staff tomorrow, and they can tell her in the morning. Have a good night, try to get some sleep.”

“Thanks. I will.”

I didn’t want to be there in the morning, and have to lie as Talia found out what had happened.

I didn’t sleep at all that night. I stayed up, anxiously staring at my mobile phone, waiting for a phone call. If it didn’t come at all, then I would have failed, and I couldn’t live with that. If it had... I didn’t want to think about the immediate consequences of what I’d done. But I would be free of the baby forever afterwards.

I did not receive a phone call. First, I felt confusion, and frustration – after everything I’d done and thought about, it came to nothing? – then dread and disappointment, and finally a sliver of acceptance. Perhaps we would manage, with a baby. We could always put it up for adoption if things got really bad. The sliver became larger and larger, until soon I was as content as Talia about our baby. It was wrong, I realised, terribly wrong to try and kill the child with an X-Ray. How could I have thought it was the right thing to do?

On the day of the birth, I found myself excited, and hopeful. I was going to have a child – a son, they said. My very own son! – Talia screamed and screamed as she pushed, sweat shining on her face and neck, tears clinging to her eyelashes. My heart ached for her, and I comforted her as well as I could, but it barely dampened my anticipation. Once all this was over, we would be truly, truly happy. Life wouldn’t be perfect, perhaps, but still...

“There we go! Here he is!”

Talia raised her head, weakly, a spark of eagerness glinting between her eyelids. I leaned forward to get a glimpse of my son.

The child was moaning. He wasn’t crying; there were no tears. And the sounds he made weren’t so much cries, or even wails, but strange moans. I frowned, and reached out for him, but the nurse stopped me. “Wait!” she said, “We need to check him. There may be something wrong.”

I didn’t _care._ This was my son. But still I waited as the nurse gently lifted his limbs, felt his skull for deformities, and opened his eyes, which were so tightly shut, they were almost invisible. The moaning got louder as she slowly prized the two lids apart from each other. My stomach dropped.

There was nothing there. My son had no eyes. Our son was blind.

I could not hear Talia asking after the child, or the doctors rushing to take care of the situation. In my shock, all I could perceive were the eyeless sockets gazing up at me. It was horrific. I didn’t know what to do. And something about the horror struck me in a way I didn’t expect, or understand. The shock was too terrible, too painful for me to understand anything.

And then, as I heard through the white noise a pained gasp from Talia, it slowly sunk into me, like a virus, exploding inside my body.

_Oh God. Oh, God, no._

I thought of the way Talia’s face had screwed up, I thought of an X-Ray on wheels, and I thought of the empty, eyeless face of my son.

There was a part of me – a tiny, desperate part that reminded me of Talia’s peculiar sickness, and how it could be a coincidence. But that told me nothing as I imagined a thousand rays attacking a helpless foetus, dissolving the eyes themselves, contorting the throat –

In the end, it was me who lost consciousness, not Talia.

By the time he came back from hospital the baby had two deformities – one was his lack of eyes, and the other was his slightly warped voice box. The doctors said he would not ever be able to speak properly. He couldn’t even cry, not really; he moaned at night.

We said, that’s all right, we love him, and we’ll do our very best to take care of him. We’ll call him Patrick, after Talia’s uncle. Thank you for your help, doctor.

He moaned all night, every night, and most of the day. Even when he himself wasn’t making the terrible, dull sound, it would ring, like a warning inside my ears. It had a strange, almost inhuman quality, and it always sounded dreadfully hurt – but muffled, as if unspeakable agony constantly racked the child, but it was stifled under blankets.

I could not bear it.

Talia started therapy. The cracks in her stability were showing more than ever, and sometimes I felt that I had to hold her tighter than usual to stop her from shattering. “Doug,” she sobbed, “I don’t know why it had to happen to _us._ What did we do wrong?”

I tried to love Patrick. I tried to continue to love her, even after what I had done – but I could not bear it.

Every night. Patrick was asleep – he was several months old, he had become more able – but that did not stop the moans, that squeaked and growled – louder than ever. While Talia sighed in her sleep, and even the child was at rest and silent, I lay, open-eyed and staring, staring into two infant’s black sockets that cursed me, and cursed me.

I could not bear it. It was my fault.

When I heard, through word of mouth and by rumours only, of a forest that people went into and never came out of, I made my decision. I confessed everything on a piece of paper and left everything for Talia. _Dear my darling little fairy – while you were asleep at the hospital I tried to kill our unborn child with a portable X-Ray. Now he has no eyes and a strangled voice box. All my love and regret, Doug._ It didn’t matter how much guilt it would add to my crimes; it wouldn’t matter at all soon.

Well, the rest you can figure out yourself, I guess. I left for the Black Woods, to get lost, to die. Instead I found a house, and a lonely little lady inside it. I haven’t heard any moaning for a while.

It’s strange. Of all the places, of all the people I imagined myself telling that story to, a bunch of strangers in a secret house in a wood barely anyone knows about? That was the last thing I would have expected. But there you go.

Thank you for listening to me.

 


	6. Chapter Five

The Black Woods House

Michael Grace was first downstairs as usual. He took a glance around the area; the dining room, the drawing room and the kitchen, sizing up his options. He chose the drawing room, same as always. Straight-backed and black-eyed, he strode into the warm, friendly room and found his favourite armchair. Slowly and stiffly, he edged himself into it, and waited. Normally, he would see Dinah next, or Travis – but Shreya was a newcomer in the house. She may well be an early riser. Cassandra was always last to arrive, and somehow he doubted that would ever change.

The windows in the drawing room overlooked the garden. There was not a window in the house that saw the woods outside – nothing to hint that there was anything else in the world apart from this simple cottage, with its alluring garden. The bushes, as far as Michael could see, were rustling in a wind, and he felt a slight shiver go through him.

He wasn’t sure he’d slept that night. He certainly didn’t remember sleeping – all he could remember was lying, awake, and unable to rest under the weight of _something_ at the back of his mind.

“Must be the stories,” Michael said out loud.

It wasn’t particularly new to have a day when the people of the house told stories to each other. Often the stories were true, and often they were unpleasant, with unhappy endings. This was not the first time that Michael Grace had spent a sleepless night in the Black Woods House, and there had been certain… _truths_ revealed the day before. Truths that perhaps had affected him more than he’d realised. _Doug barely spoke a word before yesterday._

Michael waited. _Who will it be?_ He asked himself. _Travis, or Dinah? Or Shreya?_

A few more moments passed, and he decided to get up and brew himself a cup of tea. As he entered the kitchen, opened the cupboard, and took out the Twinings tea bags, he felt something, from across the room. He turned his head to the doorway, where Dinah stood, fiddling with the cord of her grey dressing gown. He dipped his head a little in greeting. “Miss Spurns,” he said, as he reached for the kettle beside him. “Good morning. Did you sleep well last night?”

Dinah shook her head, and sat down jerkily. “No sleep.” She was miles away, Michael could tell. She had that vague look in her eyes. He took a breath. _Now’s the time. She’s the one you were supposed to tell. She’s in the perfect state, now. Do it!_

Michael left his tea on the counter and gently, quietly, sat down beside Dinah at the table. He bit his lip, and leaned around her to see if anyone else was coming through the door. He did not want to be disturbed.

“All right, Miss Spurns. I want you to listen carefully to me.”

After a second, something flickered behind the young woman’s eyes. It wasn’t a nod, but it was a response.

“Good. Now, Miss Spurns: have you ever been in an earthquake before?”

For a moment, Dinah Spurns looked horrified. The lines on her face became more pronounced, as the shade was swept from it. Her big, staring eyes widened a notch. They relaxed soon, and her shoulders slumped. _How much does she see?_ he found himself wondering, _that I can’t see?_ Then, with creaking slowness, she turned to face Michael properly.

“No,” she said.

“Excellent.” Michael took one more nervous look around the kitchen, just to be sure. He licked his chapped lips. “Pray to God that you never are.”

 

The Epicentre

I once knew a person. He’s still around today. There is nothing he hates and fears more than earthquakes.

Many people have their own reasons for hating these natural disasters – they may have lost their home to one at an early age, or live in a place where they are frighteningly frequent. However, this person isn’t afraid of the falling cities and shaking ground, but of what lies _beneath_ all that: the focus.

It all started a long, long time ago, when he was still a student. He was studying ancient religion, as a hobby (always such a curious boy. Thought it would do him good, poor thing), old mythologies, and their writings. Myths were fascinating; they always are, to young and untouched people; they give the illusion of other worlds, filled with powerful immortals, who create and destroy. Athena screeched, mutilating Arachne in a fit of jealousy; a single swipe and Ganesha’s human head crashed to the floor; each fragment of Osiris that Isis found brought her closer to her love and goal... and others, more obscure. He delved into them, devouring them. Hindu. Egyptian. Greek. Roman. (Roman was different from Greek. Very different.) Old, Native American beliefs. Nordic mythologies. Norse mythologies.

It was during the study of Norse mythology that his troubles began. He was scouring all the books he could find as usual, constantly adding to his never-ending internal database of knowledge. The more myths he knew, the better. He found himself desperately trailing around the library in the next town, trying to find some more information or perspectives (this was before the Internet made all this much easier, you understand), until he came across one book. He felt that it retold the old tales with a beautiful intimacy and fondness, so that one could read them and think the events had happened to the writer himself. _Such talent!_ he thought. _What beauty!_ He admitted that these stories were easier to read than the original, long sagas – not that he wouldn’t read those too, of course.

And the characters – oh, the characters! These Gods – the Aesir, the Vanir, giants, elves, all of them – in no other pantheon had the characters felt so _rich,_ so easy to relate to. It was, he reminded himself, probably simply the result of this writer’s skill, but all the same... he felt an attachment like never before to these heavenly beings. Gods who died, and felt pain. Gods who laughed, and married. Gods who killed, and Gods who saved.

And then, halfway through the volume, he discovered the fable. It was situated, chronologically, after the murderer of Baldur the Beloved had been discovered and captured. Loki Liesmith was now ready to face judgment for his crimes.

_“The trickster must be punished.” The voice of Odin Allfather made the halls of the Golden Palace ring._

_The Liesmith simply smiled, a grin scarred and worthy of Hela herself. “What would you do, Allfather?” The one-eyed king raised a thoughtful hand to his mouth, and Hugin and Munin squawked around him, like screeching, ghostly shadows._

_“Fetch the murderer’s children, Vali and Narfi.”_

For some reason, a chill wrung itself through his body, as he read the myth. Why did it strike such a chord inside him? Nothing much had happened yet, and far more brutal things had taken place up in the Golden Palace.

The man attempted to read on, but there was something inside his mind. There was a voice, one that was not his own, and it took him by surprise. _It’s because it’s true,_ it whispered. The voice was ragged, unused, but still sharp and bitter: _And you know it._ Unnerved, he took a breath, shook his head and continued.

_They bound him. They bound him to a sharp-edged rock, with the entrails of Narfi, his own son. He writhed already, as they held him down. The darkness of the cave meant that Loki could not see who did this to him, but he cursed all of them just the same. Odin, his blood-brother. Thor. The lady Sif. Tyr. Baldur. How he hated all of them._

_A slithering sound distracted the Liesmith. For a moment he glanced up, stretching his neck back, and not even the half-giant was capable of stifling fear, as two slanted snake’s eyes glared down at him. Hungry. Dripping._

The voice sounded again, a piercing scream. It came out of nowhere, shocking his body out of his reading stupor. It screeched of pain, of hatred, of bitterness and unconfined rage, echoing around his eardrums.

_SYGIN!!! He would scream, scream until he could scream no more. LITTLE WENCH! WHORE! DIE, DIE!_

_She helped him as much as she could, catching the steady flow of poison in the shallow bowl, emptying it only when the liquid spilled over the top and scalded her hands. She whispered soft words of kind, tender love, but still he cursed his wife. He sharpened his silver tongue on her, because she was a living being, and was there for Loki to vent his hatred and anger upon. She came of her own accord, to help, and to see what was left of her children. She never expected love in return. Loki made sure she never received it. As long as his children bound him, and as long as the serpent let venom fall from its fangs and bore into his flesh, he would make sure she never received it._

He covered his ears. It was cruel, too cruel. Brutal. The screams wouldn’t cease. They cursed him now, biting and belittling him. He clasped his hands over his head, and let out a dry, muffled sob against the book. _Make it stop! For God’s sake, please_ , _make it stop!_

_Drip. Drip. With each drip and splash upon the shrivelled eyes of Loki, he winces again. Not once does the pain diminish. Never does he adjust to it, never does he stop resisting it. He pulls against his son’s body (how it clings wetly, like the crying face of a child), and writhes against the stone (Colder than the giant’s touch, harder than the forge of the dwarves), letting out a guttural groan and thrashing once. The venom stings so, so much – how much pain can one God endure?_

_As he writhes and twists, the earth around him moves and quakes. Even wound up in ghastly chains, this is the final piece of mischief Loki can impose on the world._

The ground started to shake. It shook so little that he was sure he must have imagined it, and no one ever called it an earthquake afterwards. But as he stared at a point in the moving floor, all he could think about was the man tied, so far down in the cavern, twisting in agony, causing cities to fall and fires to start...

_It’s true, you know._

He jumped.

_It’s all true._

Oh, dear Gods.

 _But I’ll have my revenge._ The voice of Loki hissed and writhed, as his body did below the Earth. It came from inside his head, but seemed to whisper just outside his ears, making the man look behind him. “It’s not true,” he said, to the shelves of books, stretching out into the distance. “It’s only an old story.”

But Loki was already inside his head, and the man could not escape him, or his awful voice. He could not lie to himself any longer, pretending none of it was real, not when he’d never really thought that in the first place. The man thought of a wolf springing from a child’s body, gutting his brother before being slaughtered himself. He thought of muffled shouts behind golden stitches, and roaring laughter as the forsaken scrambled away.

He thought of all the _hate_ that could be generated in twelve thousand years, or more. He stood up, slowly, shakily.

_Soon the end of the world will come. Then I’ll break free._

They always describe the end of the world as endless volcanic eruptions, floods, fires, and various other natural disasters. It begins with earthquakes. Countless, consecutive earthquakes, of a man twisting and thrashing to release himself of his bonds, even more frantically as he is _so close_ , so close to breaking the taut, fleshy chains, and finally standing straight _–_ before wreaking all Hel and shrieking his sour vengeance upon the nine realms. _THIS IS MY PAIN!_ Loki says, _THIS IS MY PAIN, AND YOU MUST ENDURE IT!_

_And I’ll kill all of you, one by one. You’ll feel my pain. Not just know it._

Picture the scene. The earth shudders, bricks tumble to the earth, mothers curl up instinctively around their children. And when the shaking finally, mercifully stops, the sound of one man screaming.

 

The Black Woods House

“... The sound of one man screaming. He screams as the trickster screams, tearing through houses and houses, to reach the Aesir, and claim his revenge, his malformed children screeching like banshees at his sides –.”

Michael did not realise that he was holding Dinah by the shoulders, gripping the woollen gown with vein-ridged hands.

“But, what is it, he thinks, that is so terrible? – The exacters of that cruel, terrible justice, or the victim –?”

Dinah was looking at him now, not staring into other worlds. She gazed into his eyes, intensely and excitedly. She was gripped, enthralled, by the story.

“What the – Michael – Mr Grace – what are you doing?”

Simultaneously Dinah and Michael turned to see Shreya. She was wearing glasses, and she hadn’t brushed her hair. She looked more of a mess than she had the day before.

Michael noticed his hands, and gently released Dinah’s dressing gown. Dinah blinked twice, turned her head from Michael to Shreya, and slowly but surely, her eyes became focussed.

“Grace here,” she said, finally, “was telling me a story about earthquakes, and a Norse God. I think I’ve heard enough... Thank you, Grace, it was a pleasure listening.” And with that, she stood up, gathered her dressing gown around her, and glided out of the kitchen.

Shreya stared after her. There was an emotion in her eyes that, with the glasses in the way, Michael could not quite detect. Eventually, she turned sharply towards him. “What’s _wrong_ with her?” she blurted out, a definite edge to her voice. “There were stories about her on the Internet. A dancer who went missing in the Black Woods – went in with her sister, and only the sister came out. They didn’t say anything about her being – being so –”

 _Crazy._ Michael understood. It was hard to confront such a mean, damning perspective on someone. He shrugged. “She has been here the longest. She lived here on her own for over a year. I arrived to find Doug with her... I think she’s got worse, what with the company that keeps growing.” His eyes found Shreya’s, and he kept her in a serious gaze. “Loup, Miss Lee and I all arrived within the last two months.”

Shreya’s mouth opened, leaving her lips delicately poised, and then closed. “I’m tired,” she muttered, before edging around the kitchen, looking at the small, old-fashioned room. She noticed the half-finished cup of tea on the counter. “There’s food here? It never runs out?” Michael didn’t need to respond. Shreya explored the kitchen, opening cupboards, and the fridge, eying the infinite supply of food which all of them had become so used to. It was always refreshing to watch someone new discover it.

“You didn’t sleep last night,” Michael eventually cut into the silence. “No one did.” It was a fact. He didn’t need confirmation. “Something is wrong here. I think, Miss Fowl, if you are planning on releasing us from this place at all, then you should do it fast.” Shreya was facing away from Michael, and seemed to move her head in his direction, but he didn’t see her face. “There’s a knot in the air of this house, hanging in the drawing room.” His gaze wandered to the front door. “I can feel it tightening, Shreya Fowl. Can’t you?”

Shreya followed his look. “I, uh. Sure.” She sat down nervously at the table, having taken a yoghurt out of the fridge. “I _will_ get you out of here, I promise. It’s just, I can’t help but feel…” she peeled the lid of the yoghurt, and brought it to her face to smell. “Well, trapped. Like this is a literal trap.”

Michael nodded. “We’ve all had that feeling. The feeling that you’ve wandered into a trap set for something else. Why else do you think none of us have left?”

Shreya dipped a finger in the yoghurt. She sucked it. “Don’t worry. I just need to get reception on my phone. Then I can contact the outside world.” She smiled. “We’ll be out of this place in no time, just trust me.”

*****

“So...” Cassandra Lee said, looking around the kitchen. “Where is everybody?”

Shreya was sitting at the kitchen table. She flattened the newspaper in front of her with her hands, and took a sip of coffee from her mug. _Since when were there newspapers here?_

“Different places.”

Cassandra narrowed her eyes. Shreya was being cryptic. She hated it when people were cryptic. It was as if they were patronising her, looking down on her, or something. And Shreya... Cassandra found it hard to feel comfortable in her presence, knowing that she’d traced her disappearance to the house out of _intrigue._ She must have spoken to Cassandra’s friends and family through Facebook, asking questions about her, just to fulfil her curiosity.

Shreya should be rescuing them. That was what she had promised, verbally and otherwise, by entering the house knowingly.

“Hey,” Cassandra’s voice wobbled a little, and she shook her braids out of her face. “When are you getting us out of here, anyway? ‘Cause I think you’re stalling. You don’t really have a clue, do you?” Being cutting was helping, a lot. Her confidence swelled. “You’re just as lost as all of us, aren’t you? You’re just a snotty, nerdy, lost kid.” She grinned. “I’m older than you.”

“Doug,” Shreya said, suddenly, “has left. He took one of the cheese-knives with him.” She gestured to the knife-rack on the spotless counter, and yes, Cassandra noticed with growing dread, one knife was painfully, shockingly missing. “He just opened the door and left. I don’t think he’s coming back.”

Cassandra opened her mouth. She couldn’t speak. She couldn’t say she had ever liked Doug that much, but still... “What do you mean,” she eventually managed, her voice hoarse, “You don’t understand nothing. No one’s left. Ever. _No one._ ” She didn’t even want to think about opening that door to the forest again, and leaving the house with all its loveliness behind. _It might not have a TV,_ she remembered thinking so long ago, _but it’s better than being out_ there _again._ “You’re lying,” she decided. “I bet this is some trick you’re playing on me. Doug’s still in his room. So are Dinah, Travis and Mr Grace.”

Shreya pondered this. “Dinah is in her room, yes,” she started slowly, “She’s in bed, sleeping like a log. But Travis and Mr Grace are out in the garden, I think.”

Cassandra’s heart stopped. “What?”

“I said they’re out in the garden.”

“No. No, they’re not. They can’t be.” But she was looking, her head twitching to the drawing room. The gleam of the window bathed the room in glowing sunlight, and the garden behind it looked ever inviting. She found herself wafting towards it, feet above the ground.

Two figures sat outside, as if they were born to be there. The garden looked to be moulded around them. How could there ever have been a time when it was empty? Travis was sitting on the bench, reading a book, his soft hair blowing gently in the breeze. Mr Grace – Michael – was standing, looking more middle-aged than ever, bent over a bed of flowers. Cassandra gaped – shock, excitement, hope and a little horror crashing over her in an immense wave.

“How,” she cried, one hand plastered on the window like a spider, “How did you get out there? _How?!”_

Shreya was back in her newspaper. The front door rattled in the forest’s wind, Dinah slept without breathing in her bed, and Michael and Travis did not respond.

“ _Let me out!_ ” Cassandra howled.

–

“Hey, Cassie?”

Cassandra scrunched her eyes up. Travis’ voice was coming from outside the room.

“Hey, feel like joining us any time soon?” _I can’t, let me out!_

“How did you get out into the garden?” Cassandra groaned, not opening her eyes.

“What? I didn’t. No one got into the garden.” She could hear the sympathy, the mirth in his tone. In the dark of her bedroom, Cassandra reddened. “You must have been dreaming.”

Cassandra sat up in bed, ran her hands through her hair. “Whatever,” she mumbled, “I’ll be out in a sec.” She couldn’t resist pulling the curtains back, and checking the garden. It was a neat little thing, with carefully kept beds and appealingly sunlit benches on the patios. There was not a person in sight. She sighed, from relief and disappointment, and heaved herself off the bed and to the door.

The others were assembled in the drawing room – Cassandra counted all five - and they were looking at her with mild fondness, and a lot of expectation. “Hey, guys... Sorry I’m late... Didn’t get much sleep last night.”

Travis snorted. “At least you _did_ sleep,” he remarked. “As far as we know, you’re the only one who did.” Cassandra felt a little surprised at that. _No one slept except me..._

She took a seat beside Shreya, and glanced awkwardly around the faces. “So, is today going to be like yesterday?” she asked, carefully treading with her words, “Where we, like, tell stories?” Shreya immediately turned towards her, eyes flashing brutally. She was wearing glasses, Cassandra noticed. They made her look sterner than she had the day before.

“Why,” she asked, “Do you have a story to tell us?”

Cassandra pretended she could not hear the silken, patronising tone in Shreya’s voice. She pondered the question for a moment, feeling the waiting silence cling to her. _But I don’t have a story._ Her eyes jumped all around the room, searching for something to give those expectant faces, until she found the pair of bookcases by the corner. She licked her lips, and said, “I have a better idea.” She stood up, turned away from the people and felt their eyes boring into her back. She walked slowly towards the shelves, controlling the situation as much as she felt she could.

One hand reached out and gingerly fingered the spine of a large, leather hardback, running down to a pair of thin, dust-jacketed volumes, moving past waxy paperbacks, in one fluid motion across the shelf. She waved her finger like a magic wand over the books, moving from left to right and up to down. “Someone say stop,” she announced, her back still turned to her audience.

A few seconds passed, before Michael Grace said, with a certain level of conviction: “Stop.”

The book was small, dull green, with the title _War Stories for Young Boys._ Cassandra grinned, and held it up. _Perfect._ “Now I have a story to tell you.”


	7. Chapter Six

Chester and the Ants

_“My word,” I muttered to myself, as I prodded the thing with my bayonet, and muddied it even more. “It’s Chester the Bester.”_

Chester was in the year above me, at the old county school. He was not as much of a brute as some of the other boys. He had a fair amount of muscle, but it did not make him bulky, and he was certainly tall, but not towering. He was stronger than many of the boys in his own form, even stronger than those in mine, and so far had not fallen in any fight. It seemed that however much of a bear the challenger was, Chester could always leave them gasping on their backs, and lean over to jeer at them. He was very good at jeering.

Sometimes, if you were unlucky enough to be in the washroom with him, Chester would hold the cubicle door open and watch you go, with his small, round and very brown eyes. You could want to look him in the face as you went through the gruelling and humiliating process, but the brown eyes always won, and you ended up staring down at shaking knee caps with clenched fists. In other cases, he might punch your face against the mirror, or stamp on your glasses, or just threaten to “hurt you good, I will!”

We used to call him “Chester the Bester”, supposedly a half-resentful, half-complimentary nickname and we tried our best not to let him hear it for the first month or so. But when Reed and Fitzgerald saw him suspend one of the younger boys by his wrists from a rafter for forty minutes, we learned never to mention it again.

I remember one day, on the lawn outside the school. I was sitting, eerily alone, and disquieted for a strange reason. Slowly, I craned my neck from the left side, scanning the bushes and trees for any sign of a threat, to the right. My breath caught in my throat, and I gazed at the hunched figure of Chester, balanced on his toes, crouched over something roughly fifty yards away from me. I didn’t feel safe at all anymore. I was on the ground, the same level as him. I attempted to stand up as slowly and quietly as possible. _It’s no use,_ I told myself, _Chester has the senses of a dog._ Sure enough, his head bobbed up and twisted in my direction. “Tanner!” he bellowed, the sound echoing menacingly, “Get over here, why don’t you!”

Achingly slowly I paced over to him, arms stiff as a tin soldier’s. The sun was burning hard on his curved back, and I could see sweat seeping through the shirt, dark and putrid. “Look here,” he said, and he pointed to the ground. I wondered why he wasn’t tackling me into the dirt yet. I was certainly not prepared to crouch down to his level, so I positioned myself well and followed his point from a safe distance.

A cluster of ants were busily clambering all over a slab of rock, crawling and creeping, hiding in crevices and carrying anything around them that they could. They were densest around the bottom of the rock, and I guessed that their hill was somewhere there; I could see gleams of light where they scrambled in the darkness. I was mesmerized by them. “Ripping!”

Chester snorted at me. “Ripping? They’re just ants, Tanner!” I went very quiet, and tensed my muscles. _What’s he doing?_ Chester reached into the pocket of his shorts. “ _This_ is ripping.” He produced a simple magnifying glass, and I looked at it in bewilderment. “You see,” he started, a definite air of haughtiness in the voice, “My father works in Science, and he told me that when you put a glass in front of the Sun, like this –” he demonstrated, slowly, theatrically, “The light – it narrows.” I was dreadfully impressed. This was indeed much more ripping than a bunch of ants. I watched as a pale pinprick of light appeared below the glass, sharpening and fading as he adjusted it. He moved the thing around until it hovered above an ant, scurrying in circles on the tip of the already sun-baked rock. “It narrows... And then – poof! Ha-ha!”

I felt slightly sick, and I slowly crouched down next to him, eyes wide. The flames appeared suddenly, and surprisingly – the light hadn’t looked very hot, had it? How could fire simply sneak up on one like that? – And the ant blazed, gloriously and beautifully, before it burst and vanished. A small black mark – like a pencil smudge – sat where it had been before. I looked in horror as Chester moved the glass to another ant, still clambering, and apparently oblivious to its comrade’s disappearance. I stared, dumb, as this one too, crackled like a bonfire, and then he was moving the glass again – “Stop,” I wanted to say, “Stop it, it’s wrong!” but how could I? It was a while before I could move my mouth again, and when I did, I said “I’m needed at a class, Chester.”

“Of course.” Chester raised himself to full height before I could, and there was a fleeting, terrifying moment when I found myself lower than him. “I say, Tanner, what would you say to a good old fight after classes today?” He smiled toothily, and suddenly my distress for the ants was replaced with panic as white as the light beneath the magnifying glass. “I don’t believe we’ve done that in a while.”

I swallowed. “Of course, that would be jolly fine...” there was no point in refusing him.

“Good show! Let’s see if you can best me for once, eh?”

...

In the end, it was not me who bested Chester. It was a sniper on a night patrol, and I nearly tripped over his corpse. I broke the news to the others in the trench, when I returned. Several of those men had been in the old county school when Chester was there, and they knew him well.

“Chester’s dead.”

There was very little excitement. A few grins, a few sighs.

“Good riddance.”

“Beastly rotter, he was.”

“Used to thrash me, back in the county school.”

Waters was a pale, plump character, with big, blue eyes and a heart that I couldn’t see in anyone else. “You mustn’t say that!” he cried, “He laid down his life for our country, however much the rotter he was.” That was true. Whatever else Chester may have been, he was not a coward. I was sure he had died as heroically as any man.

“He thrashed me too,” was all I said, however, and I seated myself next to Richardson.

I found myself thinking about the ants. I wondered, grimly, how many of those had been a rotter, or a bully, in its own world. _Doesn’t matter who you best, or how many you best. You burn in the end._ I shuddered, and wiped the mud off my bayonet on my jacket. _Just like the rest of us..._

It was late. Richardson was snoring against my shoulder, and the moon was dim behind the smoky clouds. Chester the Bester stretched beneath them, a black, carbon smudge upon a grassless lawn.

 

The Black Woods House

Cassandra flipped the page. “ _The Story of the Three Pistols._ That’s the title of the next one.” She shut the book with one hand holding the spine, and it made a satisfying _thump_ sound. “Which means that’s the end of _Chester and the Ants._ Did you like it?”

There was a positive responsive sound, a chorus of “Oh yes,” and “Very good”, and a lot of nodding. Cassandra swelled with pride. True, the story wasn’t hers, but who else would have thought of _reading_ a story like that, just out of the blue?

Dinah smiled. “I’d forgotten that story,” she said. “I know I read it at some point, but it was nice to have something read out loud.”

“Yeah,” Doug chimed in, seemingly oblivious to the dark foreboding aura he now carried every time he spoke. “Really cool idea, Cassandra.”

Cassandra looked back at the book, feeling a sense of respect for it. She felt that it had saved her from a potentially embarrassing situation. “To be honest,” she mused, “I’m interested in the Story of the Three Pistols, myself.”

Shreya broke in. “If we’re having another story,” she said, “I think I’ve heard one from everyone... except Travis.” She blushed furiously as she said this. “So, if Travis has a story he would like to tell us...?”

Travis had told them a story before. Cassandra couldn’t quite remember the plot, but she remembered that Travis was a very good story-teller. She nodded in agreement with Shreya, and saw that others were doing the same. She set the book aside, giving herself a personal reminder to come back to it at some point.

Travis sat back in the armchair and glanced out of the window, and Cassandra thought she saw a little concern in his face. It vanished soon enough, replaced by a grin so quickly it could have been imagined. “Would you look at that?” The others in the room all followed his gaze, to the window facing the garden. It was raining; wind blew all the shrubs askew, and the light of the day was shadowed behind the clouds. _It’s not even lunchtime yet. How is it dark already, even if there are clouds?_ “Wait...” How he predicted it no one knew, but after a second a bleaching flash captured the garden like a camera – covering everything in bright light for less than a second before dying away. It shook Cassandra, and she felt horribly reminded of the dream – where all those strange, out-of-the-ordinary things went on. She couldn’t remember the last time they had seen lightning from within the house. _There’s a first time for everything._ Still, out of routine and utterly subconsciously she counted the seconds – just seven – before a dull rumble shuddered out of the garden. “There’s a storm brewing. That’s new.”

Travis was still the only one speaking. He looked back at the five people gazing worriedly at him and said, “Let’s have lunch first, shall we? Then I’ll tell you all a story.”

The Black Woods

_Where are you? Don’t hide. I can sense you._

The ground was prickly and unfriendly against his bare feet, but there was too much energy fuelling him to tread lightly. Cuts were beginning to open along the soles, and bits of twig and stone stuck to the blood. He let his eyes wander around, and he tried to pick up the pulse again. _It would be much easier to find without all these trees in the way,_ he thought. _I have to find him. I was so close last time..._

With his eyes fixed ahead of him, he could not see what was below him – and so, he tripped over something leaning against a tree. He looked down at it. It rolled under his foot, and as it did so he found himself looking into the dead face of a young man. He shrieked, and energy surged through him. His eyes were thrown wide open, so that they stretched their sockets – and his arms were similarly flung apart from the sudden shock. He was tense at first, and resisted with a low and angry groan, but then the pulse he was searching for returned, even stronger. He smirked, and relaxed into his state, allowing the energy to consume him. He turned to the source of the pulse – beckoning him, calling him to come and destroy, destroy, destroy – and fired. “Fine,” he cried, as the power built up, and he felt the trees weaken around him. “If you want to do it this way, then fine by me!”

He surged forward, into the trees and the darkness. In his wake he left a smouldering trail of flattened trunks and tight, thin stumps, an angry gash slashing through the belly of the forest. The eyes of the dead man against the tree were subsequently popped, and ran down his cheeks like melted butter. The life of the forest soon continued to chew the body away.

A few moments later, without warning, the skies above the forest opened with a crash. The flattened area which was not shaded by the trees was soaked in endless rainwater, and it greeted the clouds beyond the trees eagerly.


	8. Chapter Seven

The Murderer and Jonathon

(I’ll tell this like a proper story for you. I’ll even do the voices, if you like. OK, here it is: the Murderer and Jonathon. This actually happened, you know.)

“Was it like this?”

“No… No, it was more brown, the hair. With grey streaks, like – yeah, like that.”

“I see. We’ll take this description into our accounts, and set about finding the culprit as soon as possible. Thank you for your cooperation, Mr Loup.”

“No, really, it was my pleasure, Miss…?”

“Ms Grendel.”

“Ms Grendel. And what a delight to make your acquaintance, too.”

“Goodbye, Mr Loup.”

I turned away from her, in all her made-up face and shining uniform, and I was certain she was glaring at me. I smiled.

The minute I closed the door behind me, Jonathon started on me. “She was pretty.”

“Yes. Very pretty. And I just saved you again.” It was starting to get tiresome, always being the one to bail Jonny out, when he stole something, or engaged in illegal trade. _The painful duties,_ I reminded myself, _of being the sensible friend._ “I told her you had brown hair with grey streaks. And tattered clothes.”

Jonathon giggled immaturely, his shock of red hair shivering. I gave him a sideways, mutinous glance. “They’ll have trouble seeking me out!” he said, “or anyone, for that matter. I don’t know anyone who fits that description.” He pondered this for a moment. “Much better than that time you just said ‘blond hair, blue eyes’ – I mean, that could be anyone! Way more convincing. I wonder if they’ll catch anyone?”

“They might.” The pit of my stomach was gnawing and aching, and I felt an incredible sense of dread inside me. _I suppose I’ll have to tell him – if he cares, that is._ “I was... I was describing a real person. I didn’t make the description up.”

I first saw the man with brown hair and grey streaks a few weeks before, in a stadium at night. If there was anything I knew about him – and believe me, I did not know a lot – then it was that he most certainly deserved to go to jail, rather than Jonathon.

I can tell you about that night, the way I remembered it in my dreams, if you like. After saying goodbye to Jonathon (“You’re the best friend, Travis, I can always count on you to save my back, am I right?”), getting home and lying down, almost the instant my eyes closed, I was plunged straight back to that night.

There were three people in the stadium, three tiny specs that cast immense shadows, sprawling all across the field, everything sepia-grey in the lamplight. They were meeting together, a secret, special meeting that no one else could know about.

In the dream, I saw the scene from a distance, from the stands of the other end of the stadium, and I could not see the faces of the people. I knew exactly who they were, though: Francis, Emily and me. I had dreamed this enough times for it to be painfully familiar. Each night my dreams recalled the event from a slightly different perspective, but it was always the same people, having the same conversation.

I sat in my seat, and watched. _In exactly three minutes and forty-five seconds,_ thought I, _he will arrive._ The conversation began, and though I could not hear a word from my distance, I remembered it exactly, having relived it so many times. I muttered it to myself, as I waited.

“What’s _she_ doing here?”

“My girlfriend, Travis. Emily.”

“It’s nice to meet you, Travis –”

“Oh, no. Oh, no, no, no, no, no. Francis, you can’t –”

“It’s all right. She’s perfectly OK with the plan. Besides, you said a little more help could come in useful.”

“Yes, but... Damn it, I didn’t mean clinging girls, did I?”

“That was a rude and very sexist comment. Take it back, now!”

I seemed to remember a bit, now, where Emily came between us, as we began to raise our fists at each other. This part of the night was less ingrained in my memory, but I remembered that the fight came to nothing as we were interrupted by a fourth presence. A staggering, gasping speck joined the others, with a wildly warping shadow.

Emily gave voice to the situation. “It’s a tramp.”

“Probably lives here – oh, shit!” That part was Francis.

The man was walking on shaky legs, and in near-tattered clothing. He shuddered, great shivers of drunken excitement and exhilaration pumping through and out of him, like blood out of a weeping artery. He raised his head to us – grey, jagged lines like lightning ripping through his dark hair – and our eyes met.

The sunken, blackened flesh around two pale and darting eyes gaped at us, and I found myself reminded of a Tim Burton cartoon. I swallowed. “Guys, we should get out of –”

The words were swept out of me by a sudden gust of wind, and we all jumped back a few steps as the man with tattered clothes raised his arms and began to emit a loud groan from behind clenched teeth. The frayed sleeves around his arms pulled and swished, and he threw his head back. Energy seemed to be circulating around him at a running speed, the tips of his fingers crackling blue, his limbs shaking, and his face open and wild. The wind blew hard from his direction, and it flattened Emily’s long, rake-straight hair against it. We watched, mute, as the energy circled around us as well, trapping us within a vortex. Even if we had had the will to leave, it would be impossible now. And then, without warning, the vessel of blazing electricity shot flames from its fingers into the chests of Emily and Francis.

There was a second of breathy silence, before both Emily and Francis were wrenched inside out, exploding in a shower of flesh, bone and blood, and shattering to bits.

I didn’t pause to wonder why I was still alive. Instead I slowly reached down for the briefcase Francis had brought with him, shaking off a piece of stretched, pink intestine that looked like chewing gum, spat out before the colour had been ground out of it. Then, keeping my eyes upon the savage, wild-faced creature for as long as possible, I ran as fast as I could towards the exit and the car and my home. I took the time to drop the briefcase off at the Police Station, with all its contents. _They may find all the money, but they don’t have to know who took it,_ I thought. _After all, he’s dead._ I swore, that night, to forget all about it, and also never, _ever_ toinvolve myself in crime again.

In the dream I saw none of this, even if I did remember it. All I could see were two shadows which suddenly shrank, to almost nothingness. A flash of light for a second – bathing the dull place in a swoop of colour – but then nothing, simply a shuddering shadow hurrying and undulating away from a second, which stood statue-still and dark.

I woke from the dream and had my breakfast downstairs with my sister. She glanced at me, eyes narrowed. “I heard that you spoke to the Police again yesterday,” she said. I shrugged. She continued, after taking a delicate bite of her toast. “I hope you’re not getting involved with that friend – Jonathon? – and his law-breaking.” She swallowed after speaking. “All this will come to no good, you know. You should stop covering up for him. Don’t try to hide it. I hear you on the phone.”

I reddened. “That’s none of your business. Anyway, _I_ don’t do anything wrong.”

“You’re breaking the law by protecting a criminal. I don’t want you to go to jail, Travis. I’m just trying to help you.”

I swallowed. I scratched the back of my neck. “Mind your own business. It’s my life.”

A few days later, I was not making good progress on forgetting the stadium. I still could not shake the image of a man with outstretched arms, and pupils rolled back behind his eyelids. Almost every time I closed my eyes, I could see Francis’ ribcage tear from his body. I wondered if the man would ever be found by the Police. I was considering calling them, telling them what had happened – even if they didn’t believe me, and I had to be accused of mental problems, I would have it out of my system – when the phone rang.

“Hello?”

“Travis. Oh my God. I didn’t do it.” Jonathon. Of course.

I smiled, and placed an emphatic hand on my head – aware, though, that he could not see it. “Of course you didn’t. What didn’t you do this time, Jonny?”

“Nothing! I swear, this time, it wasn’t me – and besides, you know I don’t – I just steal stuff.”

I was a little concerned now. Jonathon did not tend to lie to me about his misdeeds – he normally confessed proudly, safe in the blind knowledge that I would help him out. And he was right. He was only a petty thief – and I wondered nervously what he might have been accused of. “I believe you. What happened?”

There was a moment, filled with heavy and frightened breathing. It occurred to me that Jonathon had been talking rather quietly all this time. The sound was strange and uncomfortable. “Jonathon, what –”

“I was with the guys – the nice ones, honest! – and we were just meeting, we weren’t going to do anything, and then this homeless guy came up, and he started a fight over something, and I wanted to get out of there, because he was really strong – like really, _really_ strong, and he knocked Benjamin right into the wall and he _cracked_ it – _concrete_ – and – and – he had tattered clothes, Travis. And... And the hair. Brown, with –”

“Grey streaks...” The words came horribly and full of dread. _It’s not the same person; it can’t be the same one. I mean, I’m sure_ loads _of creepy tramps have that hair. And that strength..._ “Any facial hair?”

“Yes – stubble.” _Shit._

“Any other... Special features?” _Don’t let it be him. Come on..._

“Well... It’s not really a feature.” _Please!_ “But he seemed to be... I dunno, radiating energy. It was really, really creepy. It was like he had this _power,_ and was doing everything he could to contain it, just living energy... I know, that sounds weird, and it makes no sense –”

“No,” I said, weakly. “It makes sense.” My hand was shaking. _He’s after me. He’s going to turn me inside out, like he turned poor old Francis – and even Emily – inside out..._ I gagged, but clasped my hand to my mouth. _Maybe it will be quick and painless. Or maybe he’ll draw it out._

“Hey, you all right? Uh... Travis, you need to help me. I don’t know what’s going on. I ran off just as he was grabbing one of the other guys, and I hid behind a wall, but once I got back there were ambulances and everything and the guys that weren’t on stretchers were pointing and saying _I_ did it – and that’s bullshit, I never hurt anyone. Everyone thinks I hospitalised those guys, and I didn’t – can you let me come to your place? Please?”

Once I had temporarily enabled myself to talk again, I said, in the voice of a mouse, “Yes. Of course.” And I hung up. I turned my head towards the bathroom door, and pushed my whole body against it, shuddering into the room. I located the toilet and emptied my guts into it, grimly wondering how it must feel to be turned inside out. _Does your heart stop immediately? Can you feel your intestines pulling themselves out of you? It’s not clean, that’s for sure. They sort of exploded. I don’t want to explode. Oh, shit, I don’t want to explode..._ I sobbed once into the toilet bowl, and the sound swelled around its walls, a great ceramic cavern.

When I heard the doorbell ring, I pulled some toilet paper off the roll to wipe the tears off my cheeks, and the vomit from my mouth. I flushed the toilet, and then went downstairs to let Jonathon in. _I can sort this out for us. I must._

When I opened the door, Jonathon looked up at me. He still had that reckless, foolish look somewhere in his eyes – but it was almost hidden behind the shock and horror. I ushered him in. “I’ll help you out. Don’t worry.” All I wanted, for once, was _not_ to be the sensible friend. _I’ll tell him about the night in the stadium._ He would understand. Even though he had come here, expecting _me_ to help _him...._

“Travis –” he didn’t continue. I guided him towards the sofa, and he sank into it. His eyes gazed somewhere just over my shoulder, glassily and distantly.

Patiently, I responded. “Yes...?”

Jonathon shook his head. “Nothing. Sorry, I thought... Yeah, it doesn’t matter.”

 _No, you idiot! Be a little astute for once! Why can’t you say “Travis, you seemed to know about the guy who attacked us earlier. When did you meet him?” And then_ I _can say I met him in the stadium and he’s after me. Why can’t you just say that, you stupid, reckless, lawbreaking idiot who just relies on me the entire time and can’t do anything for himself?_

“Travis, you knew the guy, didn’t you? The one who attacked us. You described him to the police the other day, when you were covering for me.”

I paused, and allowed a moment of tension and anxiety to settle between us, and grow in his expression, before saying, “It may not have been the same person.” Jonathon let out a wheezing laugh, shaking his head, and facing the ground.

“Don’t be an arse. I heard you on the phone. How many creepy tramps do you think there are that have that _particular_ physical description and weird superhuman strength?” His voice was strained, teetering on manic. _Who can blame him?_ I thought. _I mean, after the stadium, I didn’t talk to anyone for a week... I still haven’t told anyone..._ Then suddenly, it occurred to me that once again I would have to help Jonny.

I scratched my head, choosing my words carefully. “Well, technically the one I met had telekinesis.”

Jonathon glanced up at me morosely, before smiling wryly. “Oh, they _can’t_ be the same one now. No way.”

In his silence, he looked down again, and something in those hunched shoulders, in the coarse hairline I could see on his neck as he hung it forward, and in the taut stretches and folds in the t-shirt on his back – his coat was huddled on the floor in the corner of the porch – let something loose in me. _He shouldn’t be the one coming to me._ I opened my mouth, and out of it poured a thousand things – a stadium, three people, and the murderer.

If any tension had been cut beforehand, then it returned, gradually as the story spilled out of me. Jonathon raised himself up in the sofa and stared at me. “Oh. Oh my _God._ I had no idea, Travis...” The relief was overwhelming. Even though he – both of us – were now left having no idea what to say or do, and there didn’t seem to be any way to comfort either of us, it was out of me, forever. Now it didn’t seem such an awful prospect, just to clutch each other in our shared terror, and wait for the murderer to find us and destroy us. However horrible, we would go through it together, and that was enough.

 _No._ That was stupid. _I’m better than that._ I placed an arm around Jonathon, and sat beside him, with a straight back and gaze. “Well,” I said, and my voice was beautifully, satisfyingly strong, “Let’s do something about this.”

*****

Two cups of tea later, and a little more panicking, we were ready to sort everything out. The coffee table sat between us, with two empty mugs on top of it. “How do we even know he’s after you – or us?” I asked. “Or rather, he’s _definitely_ after us – but why? And how will he find us?” There was a pause. I supplied a little more explanation. “We could be waiting for nothing.”

Jonathon immediately denied this with a wobble of his head. “No. He _looked_ at me, just before I ran off. And the look basically said: ‘You’re next.’” I nodded. “And... I don’t know how he’ll find us. I can just feel it. Like a psychic power – I mean, he’s super-strong and telekinetic, so it’s not particularly unreasonable to assume he can track down a person with psychic powers, is it?”

I pondered this. Yes, there did seem to be a slight connection I felt, whenever my mind turned to the murderer. “Maybe he’s after us because we’re criminals. When Francis and I stole that money, and you were hanging out with the gangs...”

“That’s probably it.” I wondered if that meant that Jonathon would never commit a crime again, and I would never have to cover for him, and we could live our lives in peace. “He sees himself as some sort of Angel of Justice. We’re probably not the only ones who’ve been terrorized by him.”

I agreed. “Also, there’s the matter of why your friends thought _you_ were the one who smashed Benjamin into the concrete.”

Jonathon ran a hand through his hair, pushing it back like a quiff, but letting it tumble back as a fringe a second later. “I dunno. Maybe he can shape-shift too – or control minds.”

The thought of someone who turned people inside out and threw them against concrete _controlling minds_ unnerved me. “Maybe. So, what will we do when – _if ­–_ he comes to my house?” _He won’t come to my house. I am safe in my house. Aren’t I? He wouldn’t attack me in my own house..._

Jonathon snapped his fingers. “You’ll take a picture of him. That’s what we’ll do. I’ll – I’ll distract him, maybe coax him into doing that thing of his – and you take a picture. Then, if either of us survives, then we can show it to the Police.”

I made a face. “That is an absolutely horrific idea.” The old Jonathon was starting to creep through again, and I wasn’t entirely sure that was a good thing. “I do _not_ want that man to do anything supernatural – especially not in my house.” _Because, if you’re going to get turned inside-out, then at least let it be outside, away from the china collection,_ I thought.

“Well!” He cried, “Can you think of anything better?” I opened my mouth to respond, but something caught me off guard, and my breath hitched. _What was that Jonny said...? Psychic powers...?_ “Uh, Travis?”

“Jonathon,” I whispered, stiff. “He’s here. He’s on this street. I can feel it.”

Jonathon went very, very quiet, and the world around me blurred. Our eyes found each other, and for a moment there was nothing but blind, silent panic. Finally, he spoke. “OK, we’ve got to calm down. Calm. _Calm._ It’s just a feeling, it’s not –”

The door blew open with a crash, causing the words to strangle themselves, and die away. I felt myself seize up, as Jonathon jumped, next to me. I knew I was screaming, but the sound had been terrified out of me, so I sat instead with my mouth wide open, like screaming in a dream. Vaguely I acknowledged Jonathon’s hands gripping me very, very tightly. _We’re just like children again,_ I marvelled, briefly. _So scared._

The murderer stepped with bare feet into my house, and, almost subconsciously I reached for my phone and held it in front of him. _Picture. Picture so I can show it to the Police..._ It clicked, noisily, as his face was captured. As I watched him stagger towards me, exactly as he had on that night in the stadium, I felt a cool sense of acceptance, buried somewhere underneath the terror. _I’ve met him before. At least I know, to an extent, what is going to happen to me... I have a picture now._

“I didn’t expect to see both of you here.” The voice was surprising– and it occurred to me that I hadn’t heard the murderer speak before. It was a deep, slurred sound, with a slight drunken quality. “Stroke of luck, I suppose.”

I berated myself for being so _stupid._ How could I have ever thought we would survive this? The murderer was raising his arms now, either side of him, tensing his muscles. His face remained focused and calm. He stood there for a moment or two, and it occurred to me that something was off. _There’s no energy,_ I realised, in awe. I held my breath, and _hoped. Let me live. Just this once._ Jonathon loosened his grip slightly. Still neither of us said anything, as we waited for the final blow to fall, waited for the energy to envelop us, and for us to die in one destructive gesture. _Just... This... Once!_

The murderer shrieked in frustration, pulling his arms to his sides, and rubbing his knuckles against his forehead. His eyes bulged, red lines crawling through them. “What’s going on?! Why can’t I...?” Then he closed his eyes, and I saw tears of rage, and baffled dismay cling to the edges of them. “I’m after you. Start running.” He raised his eyes, and I stared into them, earnest, anticipating. _Come on...!_ “Next time! Do you hear me? _Next! Time!”_

The murderer ran, then, leaving the door wide open and smouldering around the edges. Jonathon let go of me, and let his head fall back against the head of the sofa, sobbing – or laughing – in a shaken cocktail of shock, relief, and pure emotion. Tears ran hugely and wetly down his face, and I sat, silent.

_Just this once. We got what we wanted._

After that night, we said our goodbyes and started running. We have not stopped running since, each in different directions, to different futures and fortunes. We left everything we had – a life of crime, and a life with a sister – behind us, in the hope of staying alive a little longer.

The murderer is after one of us. Perhaps we’ll never be sure whom, but I hear his voice in my head sometimes, you know. He says:

“I can sense you. I will find you. You’re running. You’re next. You’re next. You’re next...”

 

The Black Woods House

Cassandra laughed. “You had us going there!” she sniggered, but even the snigger for once sounded forced. “I mean, inside-out? Come on...”

No one made a sound, in protest or agreement. All other eyes were staring at Travis, while the wind howled outside the house. Travis looked up at Cassandra gravely. “I’m afraid it’s true,” he said, sadly. “Every word. Stranger things have happened.”

Doug let his face fall into his hand. “Man,” he whispered, “I don’t know what to believe any more. You guys come up with the weirdest stuff.”

Travis furrowed his brow. _Really,_ he thought, _You are one to talk about that._ But he did not voice the thought. Instead, he wished, and stared at each face in the drawing room. _Believe me,_ he thought, carefully, moving his eyes and meeting every pair, _Please, please believe me._

A moment’s silence later, Shreya gasped. “You’re telling the truth!”

 _Shreya does always seem to be the first to agree with me._ Either way, the exclamation broke everybody else. They gaped, in understanding, sympathetic shock. “Oh my _God!”_ cried Cassandra, emotion leaking out of her every pore, “I had no idea... Are you OK, mate?”

Doug raised his head. He whistled. “That’s unbelievable,” he muttered. He was sitting next to Travis, and he put a hand on his shoulder. “And I thought I was the one with serious issues!”

“Don’t be too quick to discard the thought,” Travis quipped, smiling, and Doug chuckled.

“Never, man. Never.”

Shreya gazed at Travis worriedly. “What about him – the murderer?” Travis could feel Doug’s hand stiffen on his back. “Is he... Is he still after you?”

Travis ushered another smile onto his face. “I feel fairly safe here.” He considered for a moment. “But still, yes. I think that won’t be the case, once we’re out of here – if I ever leave. But there is _this_...” He reached into his trouser pocket. _Finally. Finally I can show them._ “I never showed the photo to the Police. I kept it with me all this time, while I ran.” He managed to grasp the paper between his index and middle finger, and he pulled it out. “So, if you ever catch a glimpse of him on the streets, for God’s sake, please let me know.” He snickered anxiously, unfolded it and showed the others the picture. They gazed in satisfying admiration.

Michael Grace leaned forward in his armchair. His eyes widened, and his mouth opened in horrified amazement. “Impossible,” he breathed, “it’s... _him!_ ”

Travis smiled. “Yes, it is. Did you think I was lying?”

Mr Grace shook his head, not moving his eyes. “No, no, not the... the murderer. I _know_ this man.” Travis stopped breathing, just for a moment. Mr Grace finally raised his eyes from the photograph. “The last time I saw him was long ago,” he said. “He did not seem in a particularly good state even then... And he was very disturbed. He’d read something, you see, and it spooked him quite a bit. He was never the same after it –”

“Earthquakes.”

The voice was uncharacteristically sharp and strong, so it took a while for Travis to realise that Dinah had spoken. He turned to her, surprised and unnerved _._ She was even paler than usual. “Earthquakes!”

Mr Grace nodded. “Yes, Miss Spurns. He was very, _very_ afraid of earthquakes.” Travis leaned back in his chair. _What on Earth is going on?_ As far as he could see, Cassandra and Doug shared his bewilderment – but Shreya was frowning, concentrating on something.

“Earthquakes... Weren’t you telling Dinah a story about earthquakes this morning, Mr Grace? And a Greek God?”

“Norse,” Dinah corrected, all airiness and insanity seeping out of her; clarity and certainty in its place. “Mr Grace was telling me a story about a man who read stories about Norse Mythology, and heard the voice of a God in his head.”

“He must have gone mad,” Mr Grace breathed. “I never knew he had such… power.”

The revelation had the drawing room completely silent for some time. The storm made itself known again, with a flicker of lightning, and just five seconds later the thunder came. The silence resumed, and the six shifted uncomfortably where they sat.

 _Suddenly,_ thought Travis, _it is as if we are all strangers again. All suddenly thrown into a situation no one will ever know enough about to explain..._

“Oh, my God,” Shreya said. “What a coincidence!”

“I wasn’t lying, you know. I really did know that man.” Grief tinged Mr Grace’s voice, and Travis felt it in his own gut _._ He tried to imagine the feeling of someone he loved losing their mind like that, but found himself incapable.Mr Grace’s words did nothing to break the strange tension between the six – the feeling that something was coming, something subconsciously waited for, and very close – and Travis looked up. He could see it now, in his mind’s eye, a knot in the air, just below the drawing room ceiling. It was growing tighter... and tighter... and tighter...

Travis chose this moment to fold the photo in half again, and slide it into his pocket. There it sat, and he was very aware of its presence against his leg, sharp, cool and accusing. As he moved his leg, it crinkled.

Then, loud as thunder, the door of the Black Woods House crashed open, and was pushed shut.

Really, as all the people looked back on the event, they realised it could have been anyone. It could have been one of Shreya’s friends, come to find her after her mysterious disappearance. It could have been yet another lost person. At the time, these thoughts would have been meaningless, when Travis’ photo and story were so fresh in everyone’s mind. Sometimes an event that feels fated turns out to be so, and this was one of those times.

 _Impossible,_ thought Travis. _I... I was safe here! I thought..._ Of course, that had been purely wishful thinking. If he could make it into this house, so could anyone – especially someone with supernatural powers. It was just so sudden... He didn’t even feel the strange psychic pulse beforehand... He glanced at all the other faces. Dawning horror.

The sticky sounds of bare feet padding along the stony floor in the kitchen filled the air. Doug’s hand was no longer on Travis’ shoulder, but tensely clenched in his lap. The knot in the air vibrated, pulling itself close to snapping point. And finally, after what seemed an age of scraping and sticking and shuffling from the kitchen, the intruder entered the drawing room. He raised his head, and now everyone – if there had been the smallest chance that anyone had doubted it earlier – could see that his face was the one in Travis’ photo. The same grey-streaked hair. The same thin lipped mouth. The same bulging eyes in dark, stretched eye-sockets.

The man looked this way and that, and looked at every person in the room – Doug, Shreya, Cassandra, Mr Grace, Dinah, Travis. Finally, he spoke. “Listen,” he said.

_What?_

“You have to listen to me. What I have to tell you is so important. You have to - listen...” Suddenly Travis felt a fear like no other. _He’s going to tell them. They believed the truth... What if that’s not enough?_ He held his breath. His fear was shared, at least. _Only someone with a death wish will speak now,_ he thought. _No one is going to stop him from telling them._

As if on cue, Doug leaned forward to face the man. “Are you a murderer?” His voice shook. When the man said nothing, but stared with those awful shadowed eyes, Doug prompted. “You are, aren’t you?”

The murderer blinked. “No,” he said. “No, I am not.”


	9. Chapter Eight

The Black Woods House

“What...” the murderer looked around, swallowing, “What makes you think I’m a murderer?”

Cassandra Lee let out a gasp of laughter. “Uh, we _saw_ a picture of you. And Travis saw you... He saw you, uh, kill two people.” The idea of someone being turned inside-out was not one she cared to think about.

“Travis?” the murderer said the name slowly, languidly in his dark voice. He glanced to where Travis Loup sat and looked back with hard, sharp eyes. “Oh, of course.” There was a pause, as he looked to the other people. “Well, he _would_ say that – oh!” His eyes had found Michael Grace’s. “ _Michael?_ ”

 _So, it is true,_ thought everybody. Mr Grace said nothing, instead gazing at the floor gravely.

“Listen,” the murderer said again.

“Why should we?” Dinah Spurns shot back. “Why should we listen to what a murderer like you has to say?”

The murderer shook his head, desperately in earnest, “Because I’m not a murderer. If you _listen,_ I can tell you what happened.” There was a shuffle as Travis lowered his head. “Will you listen?”

Mr Grace finally spoke. “This is how you spoke to me, the last time I saw you.” He raised his hand and rubbed his eye with the palm. “As if you were possessed by some supernatural need to share the story, and would only be satisfied once you found the right person at the right time to tell it to.” He looked up at the murderer grimly. “And you passed that need onto me, when you told me the story about Loki, and the earthquakes.”

The murderer finally blinked, slowly and deliberately. “I’m sorry. But this isn’t the same. This is a different story, and I need to tell...” He relaxed his limbs next to him, breathed deeply, “All of you.”

Doug spoke next, in a strained voice. “Look, if you’re going to destroy us or whatever, could you _please_ get it out of the way and do it now? No one cares about some stupid story.”

The murderer suddenly smiled, and his eyes grew even wider, and it was such a terrifying sight that it felt like no one would dare question him again. “ _No._ Let me tell this story.”

No one objected. _What harm can it do to listen?_ They thought, _it will only keep us alive a little longer._

“Good. Here it is.”

Mariner’s Syndrome

Michael called it “Mariner’s Syndrome” when I first came to him about it, many years ago.

“You have a story,” he told me, “and you _have_ to tell someone. A burning, agonizing need to let it out runs through your veins, and it won’t stop until you find the right person at the right time. Correct?”

I nodded. “And you are the right person. And this is the right time.”

Michael then placed his head in his hand and sighed. “This is a condition. Like in the _Ancient Mariner._ The Mariner has this exact problem.”

“Oh, does he?” I asked, an irritable edge to my voice.

“Yes. I would call this ‘Mariner’s Syndrome’. So, why don’t you tell me your story now?”

We were both younger then. I was barely out of university, and he was older, but not by much. I sat down and told him my story. It’s a very long story, and I won’t tell it to you now, but it is true, and it continues.

I read a myth, long ago, in a book of Norse tales. It was the myth of Loki Liesmith, and his punishment. I became obsessed, so much so that as I read it, a voice began to make itself known inside my head – a screaming, vengeful voice. Loki howled in my ears and hissed threats from inside my neck, muttered promises of revenge to the cells in my brain. It was unbearable. Something in the story had sparked a connection – some mental attachment between my brain and Loki’s. I could hear him, even from all the way above him in his cavern of torture. I did my best to ignore him, but he was always there, always screaming, and cursing, and wailing.

I used to wonder if the sound was just my own mental breakdown, and if everything since has been a product of my own madness. I am certain now, that the only madness is that of the world around me, the world I have been plunged into, but if the sound of that God had stayed for just a few months longer… I most likely would have ended up straitjacketed in a padded cell.

The day came eventually when the screams stopped. My relief was short-lived. They stopped for roughly three days, but were soon replaced by something else, something much worse – laughter. I remember clearly the day I heard the laughter: hearing it echo as I poured a cup of tea for myself, pushed the hair out of my eyes, and sat down yawning to watch the news. The laughter shrieked all the way through news telling of earthquakes in Japan, in California, in the Pacific, countless other places. Earthquakes, everywhere. I found it hard to breathe from fear, because _I knew why_. Think about it: the writhing becoming more violent and disruptive than ever, as the God of Trickery pulled and pulled himself out of the knots that tied him down, in that cave underground. I could see the image clearly. I thought of all those squirming, sticky chains on the rocky floor, of the snake hanging with its jaw loose and poison falling onto the empty stone to run down its sides – and of his poor wife Sygin, crying with her knees on the ground for her love to return.

Loki had escaped, and with his escape would come the end of the World.

I hadto find him. Whether I would ever be ready for something like the Apocalypse is debatable – but I certainly wasn’t ready then to watch my world burn, and be unable to stop it. For the first time, I used my connection to the God to my advantage. His enraged thoughts still echoed in my head, but I could also sense him now, above ground – a strange, fizzing pulse which guided me.

I could _sense_ him.

I followed the scent for weeks. I glided through towns, leapt across cities and hopped from place to place until I came to a quiet, abandoned stadium in the dead of night. There were people inside it meeting secretly, and I could hear their voices. A girl, and two men.

“What’s _she_ doing here?”

I recognised the voice. I recognised it from the months that it had haunted my brain. It sounded healthier, less affected by bitterness and rage, but it was unmistakable. Drunk with horror, I fumbled my way into the stadium. I had no idea, no idea at all that I would come to know this conversation entirely by heart – as I would dream of this night for weeks afterwards. I reached the three before they noticed me. One had brown, curly hair and was shorter than the other two. Another had quite a lot of make-up, with straight, pink-highlighted hair. And the third...

Loki is depicted, as far as the myths could tell me, as scrawny, with scraggly, flame-like red hair, scars all over his mouth from when the dwarves sewed his lips together, and a mean, hungry look to his face. This man’s hair was neat, and soft, and golden blond – no scars anywhere on his face, and a strong but elegant build. Even his eyes – a sharp, venomous green in the sagas – were a pleasant, disarming blue.

 _Of course,_ I thought, _he’s a shape-shifter. He can turn himself into anything... Why not transform himself into the opposite of what anyone would expect him to look like?_

I stared into the face of the man, and watched as, first realisation, then fear leaked into his eyes. _He knows,_ I realised, _just as I know, he knows who I am. He’s been running – or waiting for me._ I did not say anything. I stood there gasping, shocked and terrified. Here I was, in the presence of my tormentor, for the first time.

“It’s a tramp.” The girl.

“Probably lives here – oh, shit!” The man with curly hair.

Loki said nothing. He glanced at his two companions, and at me. Then he sighed. “Sorry, guys,” he muttered, before flinging his arms wide and screeching. He became, before my eyes, a vortex of swooping electricity, and next to him, his friends were ripped apart brutally. The sight was indescribable. I don’t have the words to tell how it looked in detail, but it did honestly seem like they were turned inside-out. Understanding that my death was moments away, I closed my eyes, and stopped gripping myself. I stood still, head raised and arms by my sides, ready for everything. _If it will only make the fear go away, then do it!_

The noise stopped. I opened my eyes.

Between the smouldering corpses of a man and a woman, with eyes the colour of a snake’s sick poison, with hair that gleamed chilli red, and awful stitch-scarred lips, Loki stood with feet wide apart. His eyes were narrowed, and his hands were retreating to his sides. A look of deep concentration passed over his face. I stared. _What’s he waiting for?_ The God reached out one stick-like hand and twisted it in my direction. Now, he would kill me.

I watched in helpless dread as a sliver of greenish white trickled from his outstretched palm. It didn’t seem a stream of unstoppable energy; it meandered in the air between us and slowly ambled towards me. I was still as it seeped into my chest, and I felt it writhe inside, and spread all around my body. I gasped, and clutched my abdomen. Loki was already walking away from the corpses, away from me. I opened my mouth, I tried to stop him, _no, no, no, so close, he killed those people, no, no!_ ButI couldn’t say a word. He disappeared into the shadows.

As I stared helplessly at the dark patch where he had been, the pain suddenly started. The writhing sensation turned into stabbing, fiery agony which tore through my insides. My eyes bulged, and I threw my head back in a scream. My arms, unconsciously, were pulled up from my sides and thrust into the air, the fingers nearly popping their joints, everything stretching, stretching as much as it could. I knew, somewhere inside me, that I was a vortex of energy, just like Loki. I howled. I was not dead. I was much worse than dead – because Loki is clever, and Loki thinks.

As if in response to my realisation, the energy finally burst, and the grainy field beneath my feet cracked.

When I woke up the next morning, the pulse had vanished. I could no longer sense the God. I shrieked in fury, and the window by my bed shattered. _I won’t give up now. Especially not now._

Finding Loki was much, much harder without the pulse to direct me. I would follow countless meaningless trails, get information through violence or investigation, and constantly discovered new things about myself, and the powers I now had. I found I could shape-shift, I had immense strength – but above all I was constantly overwhelmed by the whirlpool of energy inside me, demanding release constantly, burning and hurting so much. In short, I was cursed with the powers of a God.

It made me frustrated, and angry, and occasionally it got the better of me. I would lose control, and do something that would gnaw at me for weeks afterwards. I remember so many people put in hospital as a direct result of my actions, and I felt terrible about it, but still… whenever the energy consumed me, the pulse returned. It came faintly, but persistently. I chased it, wild and desperate, trying frantically somehow to channel this unfamiliar power which swamped me, and invaded me.

I started becoming crueller, more unforgiving in my use of the power. In a desperate ploy to find the pulse, I would deliberately seek out groups of people, with whom I felt less guilt allowing my energy and strength to take control. Groups of gangsters, mainly, or just small, street criminal organisations. I confess, I hurt people, in the attempt to chase my personal goal, but I swear that I never took a life in my search.

Loki and I have run from each other, it would seem. I chased him, but I still feel as though I am the chased. And now I’ve found him once more, I’ve decided that I will not use his forces against him. I’m telling you the truth now, and that should be enough – because however good a liar he may be, Loki is no match for pure honesty.

Understand me now: he is dangerous. He can’t be let free, not with all that bitterness raging inside him. His escape will mean the end of the world, ultimately – but I have not come for that. Over the years, my motives have become more selfish. I have come because the powers hurt. They are agonizing, and I can feel them slowly destroying me, ripping me apart. I want freedom first, from the pain I’ve gone through for so long, and then I want revenge.

Listen to me, all of you. I am telling the truth. Please, please believe me.

*****

Then, Travis said in an aching, tremulous voice: “Any liar would say that, murderer.”

 


	10. Chapter Nine

The Black Woods House

Thunder is lightning’s worst enemy. Lightning comes and goes in a second, flashing and disappearing to evade the notice of the world. It can be missed in the blink of an eye, but thunder bellows the truth, and tells the world that lightning has come. At the sound, everyone knows that the storm is here. Sometimes, you will see the lightning first, and you will count the seconds, wait for the thunder to confirm it, but most of the time you hear the thunder first. You hear the thunder and you think: “There’s a storm coming.” And the lightning has lost to its enemy again, because you know.

Now, lightning escaped the notice of all the people in the drawing room of the Black Woods House as they stared at the murderer, still at the door. But when the roar came, a few seconds later, they were sickeningly reminded of the rain. Cassandra looked up at the ceiling, and wondered if the roof might leak. The water had clearly come through, as dark patches were slowly appearing. She narrowed her eyes at them.

Doug placed his head in his hand. “Jesus,” was all he said. “Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jeez.” He let the words run into each other, a hissing slur of soft “J”s and “Z”s.

Shreya was the first to respond to Travis. “You’re right,” she said. “Anyone would lie to save themselves. And your story is more believable, more human.”

Travis let a very, very slight smile cross over his face. Dinah’s voice rang thinly through the air, “That’s true,” she said, and her fingers were covering her face. “But doesn’t that mean that Travis could have easily lied to save _his_ life?”

“Yeah,” Cassandra’s arms were folded, and she was still looking up at the ceiling. “I mean, I do think I believe Travis’ story more. It’s weird... I sort of feel I _have_ to believe it.” A crooked smile. “But that doesn’t mean it’s true.” As she looked down from the ceiling, to see the faces of the six around her, the dark patches grew, unbeknownst to her. They bulged, and moved around, squirming and slithering like an amoeba.

“But Travis had _proof,_ ” Shreya argued. “He showed us his photo. What has the murderer shown us?”

Michael shook his own head, and stared narrowly at Travis, who still said nothing, but was looking around the room, with an undetectable emotion in his eyes. “Travis’ photo does not disprove this man’s story,” he muttered.

Doug finally lifted his head from his hand, and added, in a rough voice, “Good point. But I don’t know who to believe, guys. _Jesus,_ ” he said once more.

The ceiling was now heavy with something, something wet and long, but definitely not water. No one noticed it, as they continued to talk, but Travis – still silent – shivered slightly. He did not look up.

The man, who still stood in the doorway, silent until this point, spoke up. “Did the Trickster God tell you his story before I arrived?” He asked, “Don’t get taken in. He’s the God of Lies.”

“Would you shut up with all this supernatural stuff!” Doug yelped, rising from his seat, “You know, it creeps me out! There _is_ no Loki, or, or Norse Gods or whatever. No one even worships them anymore. And anyway, _I_ worship –”

“Jesus?” Cassandra offered quietly.

“And here we have another good point,” Michael mused, “If he isthe God of Lies, then we should not be inclined to believe a word he says.”

“But he’s _not the God of Lies,_ ” Shreya groaned. “For all we know, this stranger could be –”

“What do you know?” Cassandra spat, venomously, “You’ve been here for _two days,_ and you act like you know us all really well, defending Travis like he’s your goddamned soulmate, telling us what to think and – and damn it, you’re _supposed_ to be getting us out of here –!”

The colour left Shreya’s face. “I told you,” she said, but her voice was quiet, and the sound of the rain slithering on the ceiling nearly drowned out her words, “I’ll get you out of here as soon as I can but I need more time, to get signal –”

Cassandra didn’t even have to interrupt. Shreya’s words trailed off. Cassandra sat back, and a flash of pain – the sort that comes with the smack of realisation – came into her eyes. “You really are just as lost as the rest of us,” she whispered.

Above them, the wet, slithering shape opened a pair of yellow eyes, and no one saw it.

“Look, guys,” Travis finally spoke, “You have to believe me. Think – if I had Godly powers, I would have used them by now. Definitely, I would have killed the man that murdered my friend.” He glanced at the man in the doorway, and the man in the doorway glared back.

“What are we supposed to do, anyway?” Doug groaned. “If you’re right, we’re all going to die. And if this guy’s right, then we probably all die at _your_ hands. So what’s the point?” He put his hands into the air. “Either of you take a shot, if you like. I don’t care, I’ve had enough.”

Suddenly, Cassandra screeched, leaping to her feet. “You – selfish – _bastard!_ ”

Something dripped into the middle of the room, something liquid that looked like rain, with a tinge of green to it. No one looked up.

“Just because _you_ think that life is meaningless, and you’ve blown all your chances – you think it’s OK just to let everyone else die, do you?”

Doug’s eyes were wide, and he stared up at Cassandra’s face. He couldn’t help looking past and up into the ceiling. His mouth opened slightly in shock, but he couldn’t say a word.

“I never said how I got lost, did I?” Cassandra’s voice was bitter, and enraged. “Well, here it is. _I cheated._ I cheated on my boyfriend. Me and the other guy, we met on a young adults’ camp. We ran into the woods during a party outside, to get a little privacy. And we _had sex_. When I woke up, I pulled my clothes on, and started to make my way back to the camp. I _knew_ I shouldn’t have left him. I was so ashamed, and I didn’t want to see him again, but I couldn’t find my way out of the woods. I walked around everywhere, and I couldn’t see an exit. I tried to find him again, but that was pointless too. I was drifting around, crying my eyes out, and I was so relieved to find the house. I don’t know what happened to the guy, but I do know this – I’ve been in this house for God knows how many months and I haven’t menstruated once.” She took a breath, but did not continue. There was a strange energy around her now – something that she’d never told anyone was finally spilling out of her, and giving her a life she never thought she had. Temporarily, Travis and the murderer were forgotten. And so, in Doug’s mind, was the shape on the ceiling that dripped green rain in the room.

“Like I said, I don’t know what happened to the other guy. He could be _dead_ for all I know. And I’m – and _you,_ you tell your story about leaving your family, and letting your own kid grow up without a dad, just because it’s _your fault_ he’s disabled – do you know how hard that was for me to hear? Can you imagine how hard it would be for _her_ to hear?”

Doug closed his eyes. “I’m sorry.”

They were strange, simple, powerless words, but everyone was sure that it had been a long time since Doug had said them. Cassandra said nothing, but she nodded sharply and painfully, returning to her seat. As she nodded, another drip appeared on the floor – this time a little closer to the sofa on which Doug and Travis sat.

Michael Grace sighed. “Well, I’ve made my choice,” he murmured. He glanced from Travis to the stranger and back to Travis. His black eyes lingered on Travis’ for a moment, before they flickered to the stranger’s and he said: “I believe you.” He added as an afterthought, “My friend.” Dinah nodded stiffly in agreement.

“I don’t believe this,” Shreya said, huskily. “You’re abandoning someone you’ve known for so long for a complete stranger. I don’t believe you.”

Michael stared at her. “He is not a complete stranger to me,” he reminded her, “and Cassandra is right. You have this strange love for Travis, and it doesn’t make sense to me. You met him less than three days ago.” His eyes narrowed suspiciously. “If anything, it makes me less eager to trust him.”

Shreya had no response to this.

The man in the doorway stood up a little straighter. “My original thought was to force you to take these powers back,” he began, addressing Travis, “But I’ve begun to think a little less selfishly. The best thing would be for the God of Mischief to be prevented from causing any more harm, and be sent back to the Aesir.” Travis’ eyes widened. “And even if these powers do kill me...” the man smiled, “Then at least I will have done some good.”

The meaningful, powerful words sounded odd coming from such a slurred, surreal voice, and so no one either objected or agreed. Travis, however, shook his head wildly. “You’re insane!” he gasped. “Whatever weird, crazy-telekinetic thing you’re planning on doing to me won’t work – because I’m not a God! You’ll _kill_ me, damn it!” Travis, who was always so calm and effortlessly smart was unravelling before their eyes, and turning pale and sweaty.

Shreya suddenly sat up straight, and jerked her head in the direction of the stranger. “Wait,” she said. “How did you get here?”

He blinked at her. “I followed the pulse.”

Shreya laughed breathlessly. “What, just like that? You didn’t get lost, or...?”

He shook his head, and his hair flicked from side to side. “No. My energy reacted to the pulse, and I was forced to the door, by the surge of it.” The side of his face became white for a moment, as lightning swept the room from outside.

“So what you’re saying,” Shreya’s voice was low and tense, “is that out there, in the woods, is a huge, great slash of your… energy, making a direct path from here to – to out there?”

Five seconds passed before the words hit everyone there. The change was incredible – faces shone with bliss and hopeful realisation, and no one noticed the third drip that landed right beside Travis’ shoe. He too was grinning. The stranger looked around, and couldn’t help but let a little smile draw his own lips, as he saw all that sudden happiness. “Well, yes, I think so. Yes, definitely.”

Cassandra squeaked in delight.

“This is amazing,” Travis said. “We can all go home! We don’t have to be lost any more, don’t have to be scared...” His words trailed off. The happiness was placed aside, as the people of the Black Woods House looked at him with mistrust. He swallowed. “Look, we can sort all this out once we’re out of the house, right? If you don’t know who to believe. I mean...” His eyes were darting all around the room, and his mouth was covered by his fingertips. “My, my, my eyes... They’re blue!” They were, and they were desperately searching the room for a little trust. For a second, the words _believe me_ flashed through everyone’s head – but the stranger’s story was too strong. Shreya looked near tears, but even she was slowly drifting away from him, and soon she would not believe him. Love can only hold out against truth for so long.

Travis took the hand away from his mouth. “Would you do it?!” He hissed. “Would you send me – _anyone_ back there? Even if I were Loki – would you send me back to the torment, with the rock and the snake and – Ack – _Aaagh!_ ” His hand flew to his face once more as he grimaced. He groaned in pain, and they could see a trickle of something green from behind his clenched fist. And finally, in unison, they looked up to the ceiling.

There, coiled and sticking by its stomach to the plaster, glaring down with bright, yellow eyes, and mouth open just over Travis’ head was a large, green snake. What had once been a few dark patches of rain had grown, developed shape and colour – all without anyone’s notice. They could see, from one of its fangs, a drop of green liquid slowly growing. Travis’ face remained turned downwards, grunting into his palm, trying to push the fiery, acidic substance out of his eyes.

“ _Look..._ ” Michael rasped, “It... It has a knot.”

It did. The body of the snake was brutally twisted, and it formed a dark green and black knot. As if in reply, it hissed, sending shudders down all the spines in the room. Travis suddenly stiffened and raised his head. Now, everyone could see – his eyes were a sharp green, shinier than the green that ran down one of his cheeks. They were filled with an inhuman combination of fear and rage and pain, and his hand shook as it fell to his lap.

The stranger was gazing with a kind of sickened awe at the beast. “My word,” he muttered, “It seems I was not the only one after you, Loki.” He looked around him. “I did wonder why you ended up here in the first place, you know. It makes sense now.”

“No,” Travis whispered. “No. No. Gods. Not the Gods. Not here.” He bent his head forward to dodge the next drip, which instead landed on his back, and scorched a dark, sizzling hole through the fabric. He growled in pain. “Bastards. Bastards.” His hands were long and stick-like, and he wrung them, shaking his head. The snake held him in its gaze, and though he strained his legs and hands and arms, it was as though the entrails had caught up with him as well, and he was bound to the sofa. “You bastards, I can’t move... I can’t...”

The other people in the drawing room looked in awe – some more surprised than others at the sudden, supernatural burst before them – and in that moment, the trap was lifted. There was nothing keeping these souls from stepping outside into those dark woods. It was time, after all those months, to go home. “I have a girl,” Doug murmured, “And a kid, waiting for me. I’m out of here.”

Dinah stood up, and faced the stranger. “Do you want to come with us?” she asked, softly. “We have you to thank for our freedom from this place.” Her new way of speaking – that was not insane, but not entirely normal, or herself – was wise, and had an old-fashioned ring to it. It resonated pleasantly in everyone’s ears.

The stranger looked down at Travis, trapped underneath the gaze of the Gods in the eyes of a snake. Another drip fell, and this time, Travis let out a cry. Shreya winced, and the stranger’s eyes hardened.

“I will not listen to his voice in my head any longer. Nor will I live with these festering energies inside me.” He looked into the eyes of the snake. “The Aesir will take him back, now, but I helped them find him, with the pulse, and the energy. Perhaps they will help me in return.” The snake grinned, and the teeth glowed green. “I will stay for that.” Dinah nodded, and she walked into the kitchen. Doug stood up too, and followed her. Michael stood up too, and Cassandra – stopping only to pick up _War Stories for Young Boys –_ until only Shreya was left, broken, staring at the God of Lies. She shook her head dumbly, tears filling her eyes.

“ _Loki..._ ” The name, in her opinion, fitted him just as well as Travis did.

Loki winced at another drop. “Shut _up,_ Sygin.”

Shreya stood up, then, and joined the others, but not before letting two tears slip down her face. They were red against her deep, dark skin, and her eyes were still watery, but Loki did not see them.

“Should I...?” Dinah’s hand was poised over the door handle. It shone with a wooden gleam, and had a certain rural quality to it, that made one think of the doors in old village pubs. Loki groaned, but no one heard him – although they did hear the stranger in the doorway walk towards him, and sit beside him on the sofa, waiting for the Aesir to arrive.

“Yeah.” Doug’s hair was in his face, and his head was bowed. “Go ahead.”

Dinah opened the door.

The rain had stopped, abruptly. The sun had ferociously replaced it. A path of stumps and twigs, and still-scorched shrubbery lay spread like a banquet before them. It was almost completely straight, and it burned all the way from the door of the Black Woods House to a world of strange light – light that wasn’t yellow or cosy like in the drawing room – but white, and pure, and heavenly. _This isn’t the outside world,_ they all thought. The outside world was not Heaven.

There were now muffled screams coming from the house, but they were no longer anyone’s business, and they would never have to worry about them. Cassandra’s eyes would not close at the sight and the thought of never having to think again of the house – of never having to wonder how much her family missed her, or how she would look after a baby whilst trapped with five other strangers in an odd little cottage in the woods. They stayed wide and open as a child’s, until they began to water, and she rubbed them.

“So, this is it,” Michael said. “Now we go home.” Dinah smiled.

“No... Not yet...” She stepped out into the woods, and even then felt that stabbing fear of being lost – but she dismissed it. _I have people with me now,_ she thought. _I will never become lost ever again._ She walked with one hand touching the outside of the Black Woods House, the crumpled, brick texture covered with thick white paint, and followed it, turning two corners, until she came to the garden. She gazed, and felt happiness that she never thought she could ever feel again.

“Look at that,” Doug’s voice breathed from behind her, and she opened her mouth slightly. It was still there, still bright and green, and so, so lovely – a reward that more than compensated for the years they had spent imprisoned. They all fell, as one, into its arms, and allowed the sunlight to bless them.

“I would like,” Dinah choked, her knees on the ground, and her head raised to face the white light, “to stay here, and look at this place, and feel the outside air forever and ever, and ever.” One by one, they all knelt in the grass, and soon they were lying on it, their heads facing the clouds.

With the wind drying the tears off some of their faces, and the only remnants of the storm drying fast on the stones, the garden welcomed them into their new lives, and allowed them to leave behind the thunder and lightning of their old ones.


	11. Epilogue

The Spurns’

Alice Spurns had pictured herself making coffee in this way numerous times in the past. She had pictured in great detail how it would feel to tip the powder from the spoons into dark splodges into the cup, her hand shaking as she did so, and the quiet anxiety with which she would trip over to the kettle and steam up the drink, and then spill it a little as she carried it to her sister, who would be sitting – perhaps crying? Or staring blankly, like some catatonic patient – at the table in the living room.

Now that she was making it, it was almost as if she made it in a dream, the feeling was so familiar. She entered the living room, and Dinah was as vacant as she had expected.

“Your coffee’s here.” Dinah drank the coffee, but she didn’t close her eyes, and she looked horribly empty. Alice swallowed. When her sister came out of the woods – so many months after going in for a little game – there was a great steaming trail scorched behind her as her path. It led to nothing; just a clearing, with a little grass and some bushes.

It didn’t matter what anyone said to her. Alice was almost certain that Dinah had been whisked through the looking glass into another dimension. She was sure that her sister had been carried by the wind through other fantastical worlds, and her mind had been damaged by the strange and wonderful things she saw there – but the police would never believe that.

Dinah set down her coffee. “Alice,” she said. “There was a house, in the woods, but it was gone by the time we’d left.”

 _We._ Of course. There had been other people with her – more survivors from the distant world, Alice reasoned. The dead body of the man found elsewhere in the woods was just one of the poor souls who didn’t make it. “Yes. I bet there was. The police reckon it was something else, though.” Dinah shook her head.

“Alice. Can I... tell you a story?” Alice’s eyes widened. _And here it is. Here is where my beloved sister spills everything out, where she tells her story about the magical tigers and the snow queen and the fair folk who invited her to their part of the land, and the strange Calibans that roamed a far off island..._

“Yes! Yes, you may.” Alice seated herself comfortably next to Dinah, eager.

“I have to tell it to you. I must get it off my chest.”

“Yes, yes, of course you must! You’ve been through so much.”

Dinah smiled, and there was something distant in her smile which – for whatever reason – did not make her sister think of fairies and beasts. It was something more... Pure, and enlightened. _All will be explained, here._ “Well, there’s this guy.”

Certainly not the opening Alice had been expecting. She covered her surprise. “Oh. Is there?”

“Yes, there is. You see...” Alice found herself leaning, unconsciously, into the chair, and felt the scratchy surface of it scrape her back. Dinah breathed, and Alice got the impression that something very important was about to be lifted from her chest. Dinah’s eyes were gaining a liveliness and intensity as she started to form the words on her tongue. Alice wondered if she should get a coffee for herself. “He’s very, _very_ afraid of earthquakes...”

But, no. She would not be getting up for a while. She could listen to just one story.

 


End file.
